Who Do You Think You Are? - Emily Atack

Presenter and comedian Emily Atack had her turn at the Who Do You Think You Are? treatment in last week's episode.

Emily's family background is not necessarily the most typical - aside from the showbiz professions of her parents, most people don't have Sir Paul McCartney appearing casually in their family snaps!

Paul McCartney is the first cousin of Emily's maternal grandmother, and Emily grew up with Paul and his brother, Mike, as a present part of the family.

She even visits 'Uncle Mike' on-camera to discuss the family.

As such, the first part of this episode is a must-watch for Beatles mega-fans, with Emily providing snippets of Beatles history, and looking into the McCartney side of the family.

The McCartney family were, perhaps unsurprisingly, extremely musical - in a uniquely working-class-Liverpool kind of way.

(Though, I have to admit, my favourite part about this family was how Joe McCartney got his tobacco supplies for the week.)

And - shocking news! Their original name was not in fact McCartney, but McCarthy. Like many Irish immigrants, the name assimilated alongside the family, and became McCartney over time.

This was one of those episodes with so much to cram in that we didn't get to really dwell over one family story for long.

In some ways this is a shame, as things very much had to keep moving instead of diving into a particular topic, but at the same time: who doesn't want their family to be full of interesting stories?

The rest of the episode worked hard to cram it all in.

In short we had: links to Wrexham Football and the FAW, a champion whistler (yes, that's a thing,) Butlin's, a mining accident, and, sadly, the tough topic of suicide.

 

This series of WDYTYA? has been excellent so far - let's hope it continues that way!

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