Who Do You Think You Are? review: who can blame Daniel Radcliffe for crying – those love letters were heartbreaking

Michael Hogan
Daniel Radcliffe opened the new series of Who Do You Think You Are? - BBC
Daniel Radcliffe opened the new series of Who Do You Think You Are? - BBC

I try not to, I really do, since I know full well he’s an award-winning actor who’s about to turn 30 (it’s his birthday tomorrow, in fact). However, I still can’t help thinking that Daniel Radcliffe actually is Harry Potter. I partly blame the fact that my children are potty for Potter and the eight films are in constant rotation at home.

Thus, when I came to watch Radcliffe’s edition of Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC One), I half-expected a bespectacled orphan to discover that his parents were murdered by an evil wizard without a nose.

Of course, this didn’t happen. Without a wand or a Weasley in sight, Radcliffe delved into his ancestry and uncovered two heart-wrenching stories, both told via correspondence.

First he learned that the robbery of his great-grandfather Samuel Gershon’s Hatton Garden jewellery business was far darker and more scandalous than he ever imagined. We never definitively found out who did it, but the police, influenced by anti-Semitism, suspected an inside job for insurance fraud and the shame drove poor Samuel to take his own life. His suicide note to wife Raie was so full of adoration, it moved Radcliffe to tears. “I want to reach into the past and comfort him,” he said.

On his father’s side of the family, a cache of his great-great-uncle Ernest McDowell’s letters from the First World War trenches conjured up another emotional romance. Having served alongside his three brothers, Ernie was the only one not to make it home. Happily, though, he’d married his sweetheart Jeannie in their local church on Valentine’s Day while home on leave. Their billets-doux were endearingly passionate.

The programme also discovered a remarkable likeness between Radcliffe and his ancestor Louis Gershon - Credit: BBC
The programme also discovered a remarkable likeness between Radcliffe and his ancestor Louis Gershon Credit: BBC

Throughout the journey, Radcliffe was wide-eyed with wonder and endearingly articulate. “Everyone in my family was really loved,” he concluded. “Ultimately that means the time they had on Earth, even if it ended prematurely and sadly, was worth having.”

The genealogy stalwart, now on its 16th series and fresh from another Bafta win, remains consistently superb. Its latest line-up of celebrities – including Kate Winslet and Paul Merton over the coming weeks – promises to be another corker. Radcliffe got it off to an absorbing, affecting start. Four points to Gryffindor.