Who Do You Think You Are? - Sue Perkins and Richard Osman

Who Do You Think You Are? series 19 kicked off at the end of May with Sue Perkins' episode.

This episode was an excellent start to the current series, having that classic WDYTYA? combination of good story and charming celebrity.

Comedian and actress Sue Perkins kept the episode moving with her fun commentary, accompanied partly by comedy partner Mel Giedroyc.

In a story that, as Sue points out, you couldn't make up, the episode followed Mel's family as they were swept up in the tide of history.

Sue's family story is one of immigration, hard work, and bad luck.

It's also one of war - both the First and the Second World War.

Sue's family members found themselves either 'too German' or 'not German enough,' in the eyes of those around them, their fates decided by their birthplace and heritage at every turn.

There's also a devastating discovery of the death of one of the family's children, who had a learning disability, amongst the horrors of the Holocaust and the Nazis' plan of so-called purity.

Family history makes the past personal - knowing that family members were caught up in historic events makes those events more real, and harder hitting, to our modern eyes.

Sometimes it can even make us see things from a new perspective.

Richard Osman's episode also featured war as author and broadcaster Richard looked into his beloved grandfather's service record.

This, in many ways, was more personal even than Sue Perkins' episode, because of the bond that Richard and his grandfather had throughout his life.

The attention-grabber in this episode, though, was the involvement of some of Richard's ancestors in a murder enquiry.

Aptly for a crime writer, the tale had it all - grisly discoveries, amateur sleuths (comprising mostly of Richard's family,) and a dramatic criminal trial.

The level of detail in the 19th Century press when it comes to murder - both in the traditional newspapers and the infamous penny broadsheets - is often a bizarrely quaint combination of coy and gruesome.

If nothing else, it seems likely that Richard got a fair few novel ideas out of his Who Do You Think You Are? experience!

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