DNA Journey
ITV, Wednesday
DNA Family Secrets
BBC2, Tuesday
Rating: 
Straight to it this week with DNA Journey and DNA Family Secrets. The first is ITV ripping off the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are?, while the second is the BBC ripping off ITV’s Long Lost Family so that, I suppose, makes it fair.
And they do both reflect the increasing popularity of DNA testing, which takes the legwork out of genealogy and means you don’t have to go through Grandma any more. Although, just to be clear, you should probably visit Grandma anyway. Or phone, at least.
DNA Journey is at the light entertainment end of the spectrum rather than the more earnest, documentary-style WDYTYA, where its subjects weep about some long ago ancestor who lost a leg and ended up in an insane asylum. This is more in it for the larks and was first broadcast in 2019, with Ant and Dec. It has now returned with Freddie Flintoff and Jamie Redknapp. ‘I adore Fred,’ said Jamie. ‘I love Jamie,’ said Freddie. So that was settled.
DNA Journey is at the light entertainment end of the spectrum. This new series features Freddie Flintoff and Jamie Redknapp whose banter leads to some touching moments
We first met them on the golf course, where the bantering began – Freddie to Jamie: ‘Talk about roots, you’ve not seen yours for years’ – and didn’t end for 75 minutes but, even if it pains me to say it, as I am normally no fan of ‘bants’, there was some pleasure in seeing them not take anything seriously at all. And also, as the show went on, a genuine friendship was slowly revealed.
The deal was that they’d be carted round the country meeting historians and genealogists who would ambush them with information about one of their ancestors. To this end we visited Wakefield, Manchester, London and Preston, so there was a great deal of incessant bantering while going up and down the M1. It was discovered that one of Jamie’s ancestors was a miner who won a medal for bravery – ‘that’s your first medal,’ Freddie joked to Jamie, a former Liverpool and Spurs player – while another was a customs officer and loan shark who masterminded one of Britain’s biggest robberies (£2.5 million in today’s money), did a runner, and was never caught.
Meanwhile, on Freddie’s side, there was a Battle of the Somme veteran who was also a serial chancer and a footballer who captained Spurs. At various junctures the pair were introduced to roomfuls of distant cousins and part of the joy of this programme was knowing that, even they though they tried not to show it, they were appalled at this prospect and, I’d imagine, rightly worried that any one of them might turn up for Christmas or ask for a few bob to tide them over.
The format was sometimes suspect. In one instance we were told the people gathered did not know if they were related to Jamie or Freddie but as a seventh cousin (once removed) – aren’t we all seventh cousins once removed? – whipped out a photograph of a Redknapp ancestor, this did seem unlikely.
I may have been over-generous in awarding it four stars but it’s because I liked it much more than I thought it would, so was also ambushed, you could say. Plus there were also some lovely personal moments, as when Freddie returned to Preston and the street where he grew up and pointed out the bakery: ‘Had my first experience of salad in a sandwich there. Changed my life.’
And there were moments when the masks slipped and Freddie, especially, came over as quite shy and vulnerable, which Jamie always clocked, instantly moving in to bolster his confidence and kind of say: ‘Don’t worry, fella. I’m here.’ That was surprisingly touching. However, I would question why we only ever learned about male ancestors. Haven’t women been just as interesting, historically? Or have I just made that up?
DNA Family Secrets is hosted by Stacey Dooley and it’s awkward in a way that Long Lost Family is not. This may be because Dooley is neither a Davina McCall nor a Nicky Campbell, whose powers of empathy are so nuclear they probably leave burn-holes in any chair. But this is not Dooley’s style. Dooley’s questioning often ran along the lines of: where does it hurt, how does it hurt, show me this hurt. Margaret, who had been adopted at six months, was asked how often she thought about her birth mother. ‘On my birthday…’ ‘You’ve thought about her every single birthday?’ Dooley repeated, as if we hadn’t heard the first time. Dooley, who is otherwise an excellent documentary presenter, was always going in for the pain, which is what, I think, made me uncomfortable
The week featured Margaret and then Janine, who wanted to know the ethnicity of her father, and next took a swerve with Duri, who badly needed to find out if she carried the gene for ovarian cancer, her mother having died of it. (Does this count as a family secret?) As she waited to hear back she was filmed going out to dinner with her father, which wasn’t necessary, and only gave a sense that this was trying to milk it from every angle. Long Lost Family also milks it, but in a way that seems nurturing rather than exploitative. Most tellingly, I did not cry. It was all too manipulative for that.