OK, so last night was the turn of Sheridan Smith - the bubbly Northern actress. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ms Smith has show business in the blood. Her family have been musicians and singers since the late Victorian period, and played some very distinguished performances. Their (musical) weapon of choice was the banjo.
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| Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
The banjo, in the late Victorian period, was enjoying something of a fashionable phase - it was becoming acceptable to have a banjo concert for a middle-class audience, and all the rage to have a banjo player play a private session for yourself and your guests in your drawing room. So, Sheridan's ancestor, Benjamin Doubleday, a boy born in a workhouse, was playing for the high-and-mighty; as was pointed out, the moment he spoke, it would have been clear that this was a working-class boy. Luckily for him, he was also a heck of a banjo player.
But there was the downside. One wrong step and suddenly the family was in desperate straits, so much so that Benjamin tried to set fire to their pub - with himself in it. There was also the undercurrent that perhaps drink had been a recurring problem for Benjamin.
It's a fun episode over all though, interesting and enjoyable - and I have to say, I'm really jealous of Sheridan's ability to pick up an instrument and learn to play so quickly, much as she protests how bad she is. Some people are just annoyingly good at music!
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