CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Who Do You Think You Are? on BBC1: Maharajahs, slaves, war heroes... Mishal's was quite the family tree

Daily Mail​

29-04-2025

Rating:
They don't do big emotions on BBC Radio 4's morning news magazine, the Today programme. No screaming matches, no blubbing.
Veteran news anchor James Naughtie did choke back a tear on his final appearance, in 2015.
Otherwise, the aura of civilised calm is not broken by anything more dramatic than a flash of sarcasm.
But Mishal Husain, who co-presented Today from 2013 until last December, was promising to turn on the waterworks as she explored her family history on Who Do You Think You Are?
'I already feel quite emotional about this journey,' she said at the outset, 'because it's going to show me a part of the world where my father was born and where I've never been.'
Her father, Imtiaz, was born in India but grew up in Pakistan before moving to Britain. He died in 2016.
Gotham gag of the night
Exploring caves in Philadelphia on his United States Of Birmingham (Sky Max), Joe Lycett met bat expert Robyn Graboski . . . and couldn't resist pointing out the irony of a Batwoman being called Robyn. Holy lame punchlines, Joe.
For the next hour, Mishal didn't so much as dab her eye. Not once, even when she learned of the tragic death of a four-times-great grandparent or met a distant cousin for the first time, did she fan her face and ask the camera crew to 'give her space'.
It's that Today programme training. Radio 4 is the last place in Britain where they still keep a stiff upper lip.
There was no lack of excitement in the Husain family tree, mind you. Her great-great grandfather Thomas Quinn was a brilliant medical man, who in 1850 scooped all the prizes at the Madras medical school and went on to become the Maharajah of Vizianagaram's personal surgeon.
Visiting the crumbling fort of the Maharajahs, Mishal discovered Thomas was such a royal favourite that he was introduced to Queen Victoria's oldest son, heir to the throne Prince Albert Victor.
I was expecting Phil Davis's voiceover to point out that Mishal has commentated on the wedding of another heir, Prince William, as well as interviewing Prince Harry.
Unusually, though, this episode seemed determined to avoid playing up such obvious parallels between past and present.
Another ancestor appeared less of a paragon at first. Joseph Farley owned a sugar plantation in Java 200 years ago, where he used 'indentured labour' — native workers treated little better than slaves.
Mishal looked suitably disapproving and embarrassed.
Farley's story unfurled backwards. We discovered he was lost at sea when his ship failed to return to India.
But the paper trail led back to America's east coast, where, one intercontinental flight later, Mishal arrived too — ditching her Indian kurti tunic for a puffa jacket and big hat, for filming in the snow.
She forgave wicked Joseph Farley everything when she learned he'd been educated at Harvard . . . even though he was briefly kicked out for complaining about the food.
Better still, his father, grandfather and three uncles were heroes of the American War of Independence, with a plaque in their honour on display at the library in Ipswich, Massachusetts.