Art of the penguin

Coogan film is lesson in humanity

- 

■STEVE Coogan and the cast and crew behind charming new movie The Penguin Lessons share what they learned from being on set with a penguin.

Penguins are funny little creatures, flapping but flightless, surfing waves and chowing down on fish. Most of us only ever get to watch them from a distance at the zoo, or on TV documentaries where their habitats are being snuffed out.

But author Tom Michell is not most of us.

In the 1970s, while living in South America, 20-something Michell found himself rescuing a stubborn little Magellanic penguin coated in oil from a beach in Uruguay.