Vue lecture
I’m Ann Lee, and this is my testament about the mind-scramble of sharing your name with a movie character
From amused texts to awkward introductions, the run-up to the release of awards-tipped Shaker biopic The Testament of Ann Lee has been a strange experience
The messages started over a year ago. “The title cracked me up,” my film-loving friend Matt texted me, along with a tweet announcing a new musical called Ann Lee, starring Amanda Seyfried and directed by Mona Fastvold, about an 18th-century leader of the Shaker movement. Why would such innocuous film news delight him so much? Well, because my name is Ann Lee too.
“Yes! Fame at last!” I replied. I’ve answered in a similar vein to all the messages since then from other friends eager to break the news to me that my name was getting top billing in a prestigious Hollywood film. And I was genuinely amused and excited; for most of my life Ann Lee had seemed the beigest of names. Lee, or Li as it’s also spelled, is one of the most common surnames in the world and shared by more than 100 million people in Asia. I was sure there were many many Ann Lees out there. But when you get a film title dedicated to it? Now that’s when you start to feel your name might be special after all.
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© Photograph: Capital Pictures/Alamy

© Photograph: Capital Pictures/Alamy

© Photograph: Capital Pictures/Alamy
Africa’s great elephant divide: countries struggle with too many elephants – or too few
In countries such as South Sudan, the great herds have all but disappeared. But further south, conservation success mean increasing human-wildlife conflict
It is late on a January afternoon in the middle of South Sudan’s dry season, and the landscape, pricked with stubby acacias, is hazy with smoke from people burning the grasslands to encourage new growth. Even from the perspective of a single-engine ultralight aircraft, we are warned it will be hard to spot the last elephant in Badingilo national park, a protected area covering nearly 9,000 sq km (3,475 sq miles).
Technology helps – the 20-year-old bull elephant wears a GPS collar that pings coordinates every hour. The animal’s behaviour patterns also help; Badingilo’s last elephant is so lonely that it moves with a herd of giraffes.
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© Photograph: Tom Parker

© Photograph: Tom Parker

© Photograph: Tom Parker