Who Do You Think You Are?
BBC1
★★★★
Watching Kate Winslet trace her ancestry on BBC1 last night gave me an idea for a new - and timely - TV show.
With Brexit looming, there should be a programme that helps people search their family trees to see if they are eligible for a European Union passport.
The BBC could even call it Who Do EU Think You Are?
Sadly, Kate’s Swedish and Irish roots are too far back, so she’ll have to make do with the new old blue passport.
Anyway, she probably has enough drama in her life. There was certainly plenty of it in this episode.
She began her search on her late mother’s side and was delighted to discover that childhood whispers about a Swedish background were true.
That joy soon gave way to dismay when it emerged that her penniless ancestors endured unbearable hardship during the famine that blighted Sweden in the late 1860s.
Her great-great-great grandfather Anders Jonsson even resorted to stealing potatoes and beehives to feed his hungry family.
Unfortunately the bees perished and Anders was charged with their “slaughter”.
This news prompted what I hope was an intentionally appalling pun from his Hollywood descendant: “I didn’t know you could slaughter bees. Why didn’t they just buzz off?”
That wasn’t the only laugh Kate gave us.
As her search switched to her dad’s side of the family, a visit to her childhood rented home in, erm, rundown Reading prompted her to claim “I ain’t posh, mate.”
Yeah right, Kate. No one is that good an actress.
