Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33920 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-09-04
• Rating: Exempt
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 336 minutes

Synopsis
Explore the world of genealogy and learn how to trace your family history. Follow celebrities as they search into their past and find out interesting and surprising facts about their ancestors. Celebrities featured include: Jeremy Paxman, Sheila Hancock, Stephen Fry, Julian Clary, Jane Horrocks & Gurinder Chadha.

Customer Reviews

Highs and lows but definitely worth buying
This series contains probably the best ever episode of 'Who do you think you are?' but also arguably the worst.

The best is the episode with Stephen Fry. Fry is one of those people who just knows how to make things seem interesting. And his story is also inherently moving. Most of it concerns his mother's family, the Neumanns. His grandfather, a larger than life character with looks and personality similar to Fry's, helped set up a sugar beet factory in Bury St Edmonds. Neumann had fought in the First World War before travelling to England just before Hitler's arrival in power. The Jewish family he left behind were left to try as best they could to organise their survival. When touching on Fry's father's family we get an insight into the ravages brought by TB in late 19th century England. Fry's driving around London at the wheel of a taxi cab undoubtedly inspired a later series where he does likewise across the USA.

The worst episode is undoubtedly the one with Julian Clary. The series is at its best where the celebrities ditch their stage persona and really engage with the journey. Clary does neither. It has long been known that he has no sense of humour but how does he also manage to be so devoid of personal charisma? The best thing about the episode is when Julian and his mother's xenophobia comes back to haunt them. The story of German immigrants in wartime Britain would have been interesting if tackled by another celebrity (cf David Baddiel in first series) but Clary is always so obviously putting on an act that it detracts from the story. I wonder whether Clary's performance here had any bearing on the fact that he doesn't seem to have worked again since.

The Jeremy Paxman episode also rates as one of the best ever and gained the series the reputation as the `show that made Paxman cry on tv'. As he traces his family first to the Glasgow slums and then to the slums of Bradford it is indeed moving. The banter between Paxman and the `specialist on the Paxmans of Norfolk' is quite amusing. Paxman's aunt really does look like Shirley Williams. Some interesting footage on the history of the Salvation Army.

Sheila Hancock takes us to Milan, giving us an insight into Thomas Cook travel guides. She also follows the strong personality of an enterprising ancestor, Louisa Zurhorst, to the Channel Islands. Sheila's story of her two grandmothers sharing a bedroom in the family home is interesting because of how socially different they were. One a down-to-earth cockney, the other a woman of pretensions. As always the series sets out to see the reasons behind such pretensions.

Gurinder Chadha follows her family to India, via Kenya, whilst self-confessed `ball-breaker' Jane Horrocks traces hers back via the cotton famine of 1840s Lancashire. Her confrontation with a distant relative, the descendant of the mill owner John Horrocks, is a firm reminder that class war is not dead. The discomfort both clearly feels in presence of the other is a reminder of how how easily divergent paths are followed within the same family.