Sue Perkins wanted to do Who Do You Think You Are? after father’s death

By Lidia Molina-Whyte

Published: Thursday, 26 May 2022 at 12:00 am

Sue Perkins is the next celebrity set to take part in Who Do You Think You Are?, BBC One’s fascinating ancestry programme.

The show returns for its new season tonight (26th May), with the likes of Death in Paradise‘s Ralf Little, Line of Duty‘s Anna Maxwell Martin and House of Games’ Richard Osman taking part – but first up is the former Great British Bake Off host.

Speaking to RadioTimes.com and other press, Perkins opened up about why it was the right time to trace her family’s history.

“I guess I’ve been thinking about it since I lost my dad,” she said, before explaining how the loss affected her.

She added: “I think when you lose a parent or a family member, it feels like a hot air balloon that you’ve been flying in and suddenly someone’s snipped one of the cables. And so there’s a sense of precariousness. And in order for me to sort of recalibrate, I wanted to find out a bit more about my past but also about him.”

Perkins also shared why the series is so poignant and resonates with so many, stating: “For me, the success of the programme is that it’s a whydunnit, it’s not a whodunnit. It’s often like, why am I the person I am? What impact has my ancestry had on my emotional peccadilloes, my ways of thinking, my patterns of behaviour?

“I guess that was really the core interest, having lost somebody, to go back and find out about his antecedents – almost on his behalf as much as my own.

“In particular, as you’ll see from the show, I didn’t know very much at all about my granddad. In fact, I didn’t think he was particularly nice because my dad didn’t speak about him and I made the mistaken assumption that was because he was a wrong’un.”