Derek Jacobi's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? was actually very, very interesting. From a working-class East End background, Derek was interested to learn of his links to French ancestors - more specifically, French Huguenots.
Huguenots were Protestant refugees fleeing persecution in Catholic France, where they risked imprisonment, torture, and death. They escaped to England in their droves - creating their own industries and communities centred in London. Derek's ancestor, Joseph De Les Plaines (apologies if I've misspelt that, because it's very possible that I have,) was of a higher class than most of the Huguenots, who were usually poor weavers rather than middle-class clerks. What comes next though is the story of a man who, in his 60s, left an imprisonment that can be fairly be described as inhumane, and travelled to Britain in the hopes of freedom and the ability to practice his religion without fear of persecution.
The time period (the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries) is a very interesting one, and one that we perhaps often neglect in favour of other periods of history - for example, the Tudors, the Victorians, etc. We know still less about the history of other countries - even neglecting learning of the vibrant pasts of some our closest neighbours in Europe.
An interesting and informative episode then, centring on topics not often explored on British TV.
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