‘We’ve been working with the Inmathger for several weeks now, and we’ve taken DNA samples so that we can establish if they are related to any of the other tribes in the Amazon Basin. As this is their first contact with the outside world, the Inmathger are being quarantined to safeguard them from catching any diseases to which they will obviously have no immunity. Even something we think of as completely harmless, like the common cold, might prove fatal to them.’

The actors now started coughing and sneezing.

‘It is our hope that the tribe will remain undisturbed and be able to continue living where they are, isolated and protected from intrusion. It’s very important that their unique culture is not changed in any way.’

TV Boy suddenly started moving his head in a very jerky way and speaking in a crazy, speeded up, high-pitched gibberish, giving the effect of a TV programme on fast forward. At the same time he lost the blonde wig and went back to his original TV announcer voice and the three actors scurried to find some seats to watch the rest of the show.

‘We go now to the Royal Society, where Professor Ian Livingstone is giving the annual Richard Dimbleby lecture …’ A new pair of glasses, thin and wire-framed, and a new voice, older and posher. Slightly frail.

‘Genetically, culturally and linguistically, the Inmathger have no immediate connections to any other tribes in the area. This has made it extremely difficult to decipher their language, which sounds to the untrained ear more like animal and insect noises, or even birdsong, than a human language. It consists of clicks and whistles and grunts and strange guttural sounds. There aren’t direct translations of all their words, and in fact they view the world very differently to how we do. To them, colour and light and sound are very important, and they see themselves as part of the animal kingdom, little removed from the wild creatures whose sounds their language so closely resembles. The closest translation I can offer of their name, Inmathger, is “the Fallen”.