Dolly: The Sheep That Changed the World, review – an ode to British ingenuity and one unoriginal sheep

Anita Singh
Wed, December 8, 2021, 

Dolly the sheep with her surrogate mother - BBC

Karen Walker was in her hotel room after a wedding when a fax came through announcing a birth. “She has a white face and furry legs. Both doing fine,” it read. “What the girl on reception must have thought… what kind of baby has furry legs?” said Walker.

Dolly: The Sheep That Changed the World (BBC Two) explained how a team based in a sleepy Scottish village created the first cloned mammal from an adult cell, and how Dolly became an unlikely superstar.

The programme explained the science but kept it simple, with the contributors adding colour. The plan was to breed genetically engineered sheep as “drug factories”, with the end goal of one day eliminating conditions such as motor neurone disease and Parkinson’s. And why sheep? “It’s because they were cheap. A sheep costs the same as a pint of beer or a bottle of posh fizzy water,” said Roger Highfield, who covered the story for the Telegraph.

The team, who worked at the Roslin Institute, painted an entertaining picture of their working conditions: Walker carrying the specimens in her bra to keep them warm, her fellow embryologist Bill Ritchie chosen for the painstaking nuclear transfer work because he had “a steady hand and the patience of a saint”. John Bracken, the animal anaesthetist, slept in the unit overnight in case Dolly’s mother went into labour.

There isn’t space to acknowledge all the scientists here, but special mention must go to Ian Wilmut, who led the research, and Keith Campbell, the maverick cell biologist whose “crazy theory” became a reality.

Prof Ian Wilmut led the research behind the creation of Dolly the sheep - Chris Watt

And then there was Dolly herself. We could pause here to accuse the team of anthropomorphising her – posing for the world’s press, aware that she was a star – but they knew her better than anyone. Certainly better than the animal rights campaigner who broke into Dolly’s barn to liberate her from the research facility, but failed when they were unable to pick her out from the flock.

Ethics were touched on only briefly. If these animals can be used to find successful treatments for life-threatening human conditions, then the work is justified, the programme said. Walker herself was born with spina bifida; Wilmut was later diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

As for Dolly: she’s stuffed and mounted in the National Museum of Scotland. “She’s this piece of cutting edge technology in sheep’s clothing. She’s just a superstar,” said the museum director. But as the programme showed, the Roslin team were the real stars.