RAISING HISTORY FROM THE DEAD
TV column for the Canberra Times Tuesday 24 October 2006


I've often wondered what it is, aside from soccer, which can make British people show their emotions. As it turns out, all it takes is the second series of "Who Do You Think You Are?", the genealogy detective show (UK TV, Thursdays, 8.30 pm).

The subject of the first episode this week, Stephen Fry, specialises in comedy, poetry, and erudite quiz shows. He's a former Oxford student, an actor specialising in English archetypes (the detective in 'Gosford Park' , P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves, Oscar Wilde), and was Hugh Laurie's comedy partner years before Laurie went off to stare down some of the predictable scripts for 'House'.

Somehow, Mr Fry has always remained likeable, perhaps because his demeanour isn't the crushingly clubby upper-class sort of politeness, but rather the self-deprecating and genuine kind. His autobiography Moab Is My Washpot struck the most horrifying note of stiff-upper-lip when describing being sent away to boarding school as a very small boy, and the later sexual assaults on him there. As a grown-up, he had a such a confronting bout of stage fright it caused him to flee the country.

In the light of all that, I wanted Mr Fry to find a jolly past full of frisky thespian ancestors who'd left behind steamer trunks to rummage in. Instead he finds himself in tears on Eastern European doorsteps; on a bleak, blank, tour of an untended Jewish cemetery in a town where only one Jewish person is still alive, and reading aloud the ghastly precise records of Auschwitz. It's terribly moving - back in England, even his stiff-upper-lipped parents are clearly upset. I think his father may even have blinked.

While some scenes are rather set-up (Mr Fry tapping on his computer in the London cab he drives) there is nothing stagey about the vulnerability of all the subjects of this series, and the surprisingly deep feelings they develop for long-gone relatives and their subjugation to fate, the memory of tiny children killed by conditions which can be banished by basic sanitation, nutrition and vaccination.

Jane Horrocks (Bubble, Edina's secretary in Absolutely Fabulous, and the star of the film Little Voice) traces back the line of strong women in her family, only to find some family secrets that may not have been investigated as vigorously as possible (did her great-grandmother pretend to be raising two much younger brothers when they were really her own children? Nobody asks).

Miss Horrocks' ancestors, as children in Northern England worked 14 hours a day in a cacophony of dangerously jerking cotton-weaving machines. She's proud her ancestors voted to support the cause of the American slaves, even though they knew it would devastate their industry and starve their families.

Julian Clary is episode three; soft spoken, beautifully mannered; best-known for his outrageously-costumed show "Sticky Moments" and his love of dogs, and less known for his history of depression. Mr Clary has a sensitive melancholy about him echoed by the life of his grandfather, who was a voluntary patient in a mental hospital after World War One had its wicked way with him. Mr Clary's mother had put her foot down - she doesn't want any "anyone foreign" found in her family tree (with predictably satisfying results for the viewer).

Although Jane Horrocks' children and partner are briefly mentioned, the fact that both Mr Fry and Mr Clary are gay is not acknowledged, nor are any current relationships or feelings about not adding any twigs to the family tree. The others in the series are Jeremy Paxton (a British current affairs journalist) who finds a history of gobsmacking poverty, Sheila Hancock (an actress featured in Grumpy Old Women) who wants to find out the identity of a relative in a sepia photo and Gurinda Chahda, the writer and director of Bend It Like Beckham, who goes back through Kenja, India, Pakistan to find (of course) that a rigid class system isn't confined to England.

This is about real emotions, about how the past is relevant, about the unexpected ways humans can feel for each other and be connected, even if they never meet. Somehow I found myself feeling so much more for the celebrities on 'Who Do You Think You Are?' than if they were dancing, or iceskating, or performing dicky "challenges" on an island.

*Last week I announced plans to watch pirate discs of West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin's new drama/comedy about the TV industry, Studio 60 the Sunset Strip, now showing in the US. How is it? It evokes exactly the same feeling as when you were 9 and hugged yourself with joy after reading the Magic Faraway Tree for the first time. Like West Wing, it's funny, fast and smart, with characters you adore. Who knows which network in Australia will buy it, or when, or who will own it, now that media ownership laws are being - what's the word? Hand-tailored? It will probably follow the new hit show, Dancing with the Minister for Communications.