Left: mammals come in all shapes and sizes - the Duck-Billed Platypus. Photo: Dave Watts. © Dave Watts/naturepl.com.

It's time to break out that blue shirt, pull on your trusty beige trousers, set your voice to whisper and become everyone's favourite wildlife expert for a day.

Beginning at the Natural History Museum in London, the BBC series, The Life of Mammals has taken to the road, offering the opportunity to see the earth's warm-blooded creatures through the eyes of David Attenborough.

In the capital until January 13, this multi-media, interactive and fascinating exhibition then sets off around the country to eight science and discovery centres, coming to a stop on March 16.

Right: the queen of the jungle? A lioness from the BBC's remarkable series. Photo: Neil Lucas. © Neil Lucas.

Split into five sections, the show takes visitors on a journey, guided by their senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch, into the world of mammals, from exploring the facts to looking at behaviour, adaptation and where us humans fit into it all.

Each section is fully interactive with objects to touch, images to watch and sounds to hear.

Perhaps most interestingly - anyone interested in a career in wildlife television, take note - the exhibition displays the process by which we, and most notably Mr Attenborough, can experience, record, and study mammals.

Left: the biggest mammal to walk the earth and never forget a face - the elephant. Photo: Neil Lucas. © Neil Lucas.

Sight, the show's centrepiece, is an interactive mock-up of a cameraman's hide, where Really Wild Show or Animal Magic candidates can take a peek at what's being filmed and even have a go at editing shots from the series itself.

The Sound section is an inflatable hemisphere where visitors are immersed in the sounds of the natural world, from British woodland to the deepest ocean. For all those to whom Mr Attenborough's hushed tones are like music to the ears, there is the opportunity to listen to some fascinating accounts about animal lives recorded by the great man.

The weak-hearted should maybe take caution when entering the Smell zone where it's time to take a deep breath and learn the importance of this particular sense to all mammals.

Right: a voracious collector of nuts - the graceful red squirrel in the snow. © Nature Picture Library/Niall Benvie.

Taste explores how diet has had one of the greatest evolutionary effects on mammalian diversity, while Touch offers the chance to compare your skin with that of your warm-blooded cousins.

The show is a perfect introduction to the lives and qualities of the planet's mammals, while taking visitors behind the scenes of a production team that has enchanted and enthralled television audiences for half a century.

The tour dates in full: