Culch has challenged me to say why I think you should watch Who Do You Think You Are (WDYTYA) instead of the Apprentice tonight. OK, the Apprentice is easy viewing for a Monday night, engaging, etc, but WDYTYA gives so much more than easy entertainment. It has history, personal stories, mystery, wonder, tragedy, discovery, excitement, fantasy and more.
In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, WDYTYA is a reality documentary looking at the genealogy of famous people. For this side of the world there’s been 8 UK series of WDYTYA and RTE is currently mid way through its second year. Canada is also in its second year and America is due to start too, but has been delayed.
There’s not much online by way of video clips so I’m just going to give you some interesting things I’ve learnt from WDYTYA over the years:
- Vitamins were discovered, by Carol Vorderman’s great grandfather, because of the different rice served in Indonesian concentration camps - S4E4
- Nazis occupied Jersey during WW2, among them Ian Hislop’s parents - S1E5
- The British Empire had a law to pay slave farm managers in the colonies to breed with slaves to keep up slave numbers – including an ancestor of Ainsley Harriot S5E5
- The advent of ‘talkie’ films meant that all the piano players who accompanied silent films, including Leslie Garrett’s grandfather, lost their jobs - S1E8
- Cockney slang comes from the London street mongers who used it as a secret language, e,g, s-lang, among them an ancestor of Barbara Windsor - S3E1
- It was a heavy legal and social crime during WW2 to stash food in your cellars, as was the case for Jodie Kidd’s grandparents S5E7
- Up until the first half of 19thC, it was illegal for a widow to marry her late husband’s brother, which is why Charlie Bird’s great grandparents kept it secret - RTE S1E1
- The Shakespeare Globe Theatre wouldn’t have come about had Sam Wanamaker, father of actress Zoe Wanamaker, not been chased out of America by the McCarthy trials – S6E4
- MI5 had a Cold War project of training refugee Albanians in Malta and airlifting them into Albania to start a revolution there – coordinated by Chris de Burgh’s dad - RTE S2E3
- Marconi’s radio pioneering wouldn’t have made it off the ground without his business savy Wexford cousin, who’s an ancestor of Ivan Yates S2E2
- Matthew Pinsett, Boris Johnson, Chris de Burgh & Ryan Tubridy are all related to the English monarchy.
- English celebrities love to have Irish relations - John Hurt, Barbara Windsor, Jeremy Irons.
There’s 2 episodes left in the current RTE series. Tonight it’s actress Fionnula Flanagan and next week’s last one is actor Simon Delaney.
WDYTYA - FTW. Apprentice schmentice.
I’ve heard lots of people talking about Who Do You Think You Are? recently but have yet to sit down and watch it myself. I watched an episode not too long ago with Julian Clary tracing his family which was very interesting.
Must try to catch some of it on RTE player…cos if I’m in front of the telly I *wil* have to watch The Apprentice, I loves it!
Thought the Jeremy Irons one was interesting in that he lives in West Cork ‘cos he felt a connection there. Turns out he had ancestors who came from that area that he previously knew nothing about.
I’m really glad you decided to write this post after all Blots I never realised how interesting that show was, I’m definitely going to catch it on RTE Player sometime.
Niamh - another bullet point I was gonna put in that I never knew before is that, apart from being proud of Irish roots, British have a latent shame in German connections, I’d never come across that before and it was interesting. I’d love German connections, a bit like John Hurt and the Irish.
Tara - yea, and it was only up the road from him in Inishannon.
Sinead it’ll be on RTE for the next few weeks. I wouldn’t know where the latest BBC series is *cough* http://bit.ly/wITLZ\ *cough*