WEDNESDAY 27 SEPTEMBER
Documentary
Who Do You Think You Are?
9:00pm - 10:00pm
BBC1 London & South East
VIDEO Plus+: 1843
Subtitles, audio description, widescreen
4/8 - David Tennant
It's the little moments that make Who Do You Think You Are? such a pleasure. Take David Tennant's delightful mum, and her good-natured disapproval of his stage name (taken from the Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant by the then 16-year-old David McDonald). She'd much rather he'd chosen a family name, such as David McLeod, or David Blair. David Blair? Doesn't have quite the right ring for a future Doctor Who, does it? This exchange comes at the very start of a journey that takes Tennant - a charming and articulate guide - back to his native Scotland ("I'm intensely proud of Scotland, it's a purely emotional thing.... somehow it's locked into my DNA") and to a rainy Isle of Mull. But as he digs deeper, Tennant becomes uncomfortable with certain aspects of his family history. The discovery of strongly Protestant forebears takes him to Londonderry, Northern Ireland, where he is forced to confront the spectre of sectarianism and a side to his family's story he finds it hard to face up to.
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