{"id":16017,"date":"2022-05-26T10:00:01","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T08:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1651387"},"modified":"2022-05-26T10:22:23","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T08:22:23","slug":"sue-perkins-wanted-to-do-who-do-you-think-you-are-after-fathers-death","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/sue-perkins-wanted-to-do-who-do-you-think-you-are-after-fathers-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Sue Perkins wanted to do Who Do You Think You Are? after father\u2019s death"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Lidia Molina-Whyte\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Thursday, 26 May 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Sue Perkins is the next celebrity set to take part in Who Do You Think You Are?<\/a>, BBC One\u2019s fascinating ancestry programme.<\/p>\n

The show returns for its new season tonight (26th May), with the likes of Death in Paradise<\/a>\u2018s Ralf Little, Line of Duty<\/a>\u2018s Anna Maxwell Martin and House of Games\u2019 Richard Osman taking part \u2013 but first up is the former Great British Bake Off host.<\/p>\n

Speaking to RadioTimes.com<\/a> and other press, Perkins opened up about why it was the right time to trace her family\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess I\u2019ve been thinking about it since I lost my dad,\u201d she said, before explaining how the loss affected her.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cI think when you lose a parent or a family member, it feels like a hot air balloon that you\u2019ve been flying in and suddenly someone\u2019s snipped one of the cables. And so there\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>

Perkins also shared why the series is so poignant and resonates with so many, stating: \u201cFor me, the success of the programme is that it\u2019s a whydunnit, it\u2019s not a whodunnit. It\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess that was really the core interest, having lost somebody, to go back and find out about his antecedents \u2013 almost on his behalf as much as my own.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn particular, as you\u2019ll see from the show, I didn\u2019t know very much at all about my granddad. In fact, I didn\u2019t think he was particularly nice because my dad didn\u2019t speak about him and I made the mistaken assumption that was because he was a wrong\u2019un.\u201d<\/p>\n