TV reviews: Finally, Who Do You Think You Are? hits the mark again

The Herald Scotland

9 hours ago

Now I know WDYTYA has been a bit boring lately - frankly, some of the 'celebrities' have been human sleeping tablets - but come on, wasn't this a case of TV eating itself? As Morgan said: 'I never thought in a million years you'd actually ask me to be on it.'
Bolton born and bred and now living in Bloomsbury (nice), Morgan had three aims: to learn more about her Aunty Ginny's fiance, Albert Dugdale, who died in the First World War; to trace her Scottish roots in Dumfries; and to find out the identity of 'German Charlie', the stuff of family legend.
As she suspected, Morgan's journey was far from glam. She travelled on buses and suburban trains to small town libraries. There was a lot of weaving in her background. German Charlie's story was part of that history and wasn't terribly interesting unless you were into chimneys.
Aunty Ginny, Morgan discovered, lived near the rest of the family in Bolton, as many of her generation did. That didn't set the heather on fire either. But Dumfries and Morgan's four times great-grandmother Isabella? Now you're talking.
Isabella turned out to have had five children to four different fathers. History could relate this because she had taken all the absent fathers to court for child support. As a result, a record of her existence existed - a rarity for a woman, even more so someone who was working class.
Between the lines there was obvious sadness. One record said Isabella had been known to the local lads as 'an improper character'.
'I thought you were going to tell me I was related to Robert the Bruce or Robert Burns, one of the Roberts,' said Morgan. 'Instead my great, great, great grandmother was a bit of a hussy.'
For fear of spoilers I won't say what happened next in Dumfries, or how Morgan got on tracing Albert Dugdale's family to give them the 'death penny' that had been kept safe in her family. If you haven't seen the show yet you are in for a treat on iPlayer.
Morgan's WDYTYA probably isn't destined for the hall of fame. But the very ordinariness of the people we learned about was what made them special. They weren't kings or queens or captains of industry or explorers, they did dull jobs and lived in terraced houses, but they were here once, and their lives mattered.
Whoever decided Diane Morgan would be a good pick for WDYTYA should be given a pay rise. This could have been a disaster; instead it was a triumph.
The same cannot be said for Genius Game (STV, Wednesday), which reached its finale this week.
A test of intelligence rather than general knowledge, Genius Game has been a hit in its home country of South Korea. Here, it struggled from episode one.
Where to start? The games were ridiculously complicated and poorly explained. The contestants lacked sparkle. But nothing fell on its backside as much as David Tennant's hosting. It was up to him to bring the party, and he didn't.
Given the grand title of 'The Creator', his part in proceedings was limited to sitting in another room, isolated from the contestants, chipping in the odd comment now and then. Tennant can usually do that kind of thing in his sleep; here he seemed to be between naps.
After grinding on for eight weeks we finally had a winner. Everyone still watching should have been given a share of the £44,000 prize just for getting to the end of the series (Why £44,000? Who knows?).
Still in his attic, Tennant readied himself for the big finish, such as it was.
'What a ride!' he said. 'For now, I shall bid you farewell!'
For now? What a ride? I don't know what quiz show he was watching, but if he expects a second series of Genius Game he may have a very long wait.
Defying all advice about returning to the scene of a crime, Neil Forsyth was back with The Gold (BBC1, Sunday-Tuesday), a follow-up to his 2023 hit about the Brink's-Mat robbery.
In the hands of another writer this might have been a sequel too far. Fortunately, the creator of Bob Servant and Guilt expertly blew the bloody doors off the tale again.
At the end of the first series it was revealed only half the gold had been found. Some £13 million was still out there, together with mountains of dirty cash waiting to be laundered. So it was back on the chain gang again for gentleman copper Brian Boyce (Hugh Bonneville), and side-kicks Tony and Nicki (Emun Elliot and Charlotte Spencer; worth a spin-off series on their own).
Following the money was never going to be as exciting as watching the original heist, and so it proved. It was episode three before anyone even broke into a run (the whole series is on iPlayer now).
Forsyth made up for this lack of action by adding layers to existing characters and creating new ones. Of the latter, Joshua McGuire was a standout as Douglas Baxter, Oxbridge graduate and lawyer fallen on hard times on the Isle of Man. Baxter was a terrible snob but highly amusing with it.
'The Isle of Man doesn't offer much,' he said. 'I once ordered a martini in a pub and the landlord came at me with a poker.'
At times, Forsyth's villains seemed a touch too clever and eloquent. While this made for some great dialogue - there's an old lag's speech later on that's one for the ages - it didn't always ring true. But this, after all, was a drama about Brink's-Mat, not a documentary.
Forsyth brought the threads of the story together with deceptive ease, righting a key wrong of the first series along the way. Kenneth Noye (an excellent Jack Lowden), made out to be a charismatic Robin Hood-type in early episodes, was shown in his truly grisly colours.
'The gold' remained a fascinating character in its own right, a siren luring men to their doom. Who, in the end, profited? Where did all the money go? As one villain said, 'Loads of people got rich from that job, but it weren't the six blokes in the van.'
David Tennant was the host of Genius Game (Image: ITV1)
More villainy was at work in the new historical drama Shardlake (STV, Monday). I say 'new' but admirers of CJ Sansom's novels will know this period murder mystery had been this way before. It first aired on Disney+ in 2024, but after four episodes the show wasn't renewed. Never mind Tudor England, it's a tough old world out there in streaming land.
Young Matthew Shardlake (Arthur Hughes) was a lawyer/detective for hire. He was also disabled, which made him an outsider in a society that saw difference as a curse. We knew what Shardlake thought about that, and much else, because he had a handy habit of talking out loud to himself. 'Ready Matthew, ready for what this day might bring?' he asked his reflection in the window.
The day brought a summons from Thomas Cromwell (Sean Bean) no less. One of his commissioners had been murdered in a distant monastery. Cromwell appointed Shardlake to head the investigation.
Mark Rylance made Cromwell his own in Wolf Hall, so all power to Bean's elbow for taking on the gig. His Cromwell was more swaggering than quietly sinister, but he more than passed muster.
The drama's treatment of disability, the attempts at witty asides, the hero's empathy, turned Shardlake into a modern affair, presumably to widen its appeal. But the more talk, less action approach also made the hour seem as slow as a week in the Tower.
Shardlake also wanted to have its period cake and eat it, which meant lots of gloomy scenes where you could barely make out what was going on.
When times got tough, there was always that man Bean to liven things up, even if you did half expect him to start banging on about a certain brand of tea. Mark Rylance didn't have that problem.