Davina’s best big brother shocker
Tytytywas tytyty tytyty
NO matter how much you might steel yourself for Long Lost Family, it takes a robust spirit not to dissolve into a puddle of sobs. The Born Without A Trace foundling specials on ITV were absolute corkers that walloped you with shock and awe and hurt the heart.
A baby found in a wooden corned beef box. Another left in a phone box. A girl abandoned in a ladies’ toilet. A boy on the front seat of a car.
It was devastating and we hadn’t even met anyone yet.
These are people who don’t know their birthdays, don’t know the names their birth parents gave them, don’t know where they come from.
The first instalment gave us the biggest twist I’ve ever seen on the show, deftly handled by professional news-breakers Davina Mccall and Nicky Campbell.
David Mcbride was left as a baby in a tartan bag in a car in 1962 in Belfast. He spent decades searching for answers.
Then there was the usual LLF flip to the second story. Six years later, on the other side of the Irish border, Helen Ward was left in a telephone box. But here came the kicker – she was left in a tartan bag.
David and Helen were full siblings, abandoned six years apart. Had their mum put them in tartan bags to help them find each other? No one will ever know.
Grenades
Davina, queen of the gentle pauses, drip feeding the details like quiet little grenades, told David the news.
“We look alike, don’t we?” he said, struggling to comprehend.
They finally met. How overwhelming to meet your first blood relative in your 50s.
Before long they had photos of their late parents and news of 14 half siblings – all hail Long Lost Family’s crack team of detectives. And the second episode was just as hard-hitting. Simon Jeffery was left in a corned beef box at a Kent pub in 1963.
The sadness as he stood at that spot, now a Mcdonald’s, was heartbreaking. A neon hub of takeaway burgers, but for him, his only connection with his past.
He’d lived in the same house his whole life in case his family wanted to find him. “It feels like you’d been discarded,” he said.
The news for Simon was a blow. His parents married and had lived nearby with his six older siblings. Imagine knowing you are the only one they left?
His reaction was devastating, admirable and gorgeous at the same time.
“Why did she leave me there if I’m the youngest? I was never mentioned? Do I look like them?”
When he hugged his siblings, one of whom had worked in the same shop as him, the tears rolled.
Honestly, this show never lets up. Always full of compassion and optimism, never exploitative, it is extraordinary TV.
BRADLEY
Walsh: Happy
ITV
60th Birthday on
of his trawled the archives
in the biz. astonishing 40 years
Doctor Who to From Corrie and
quiz shows and stand-up comedy,
saw 80s haircuts, gritty drama, we
cracking forgotten gems and
to the moments. Let’s cut
of a rare chase – he’s one breed of all-round
entertainers.
KERRY Godliman swigging wine in a bit uninspired but I loved the animation sparkly going-out top, slumped
Tureet, sum quipit ncincilit veros digna of Bob Mortimer’s Train Guy, his take on outside tside her teenage tee daughter’s bedroom
at, quis alit doluptat, the loud commuter talking business on s the snapsh snapshot of lockdown faccumsandio
corem dolore te parenting the phone that is a social media hit. we needed to see. conumsa ndionsequi
mincidunt lobor “Superbio!”
She was one of the stars of erciduipit lorper sum
acilit praesenim alit BBC2’S But the best bit was Michael Spicer as Comedians: medians: Ho Home Alone, quis acilisit ipit
ver aut landiamet which was just a political adviser, feeding Home the tonic we ne need right now. augiat. Sum in ute
Secretary Priti Patel her briefing lines, Restricted accummo dipsum ing
to their homes corper ipis nonsed ea commy nos nim and props, while playing hide and seek with his kid. top comics perf performed sketches, tat. Unt augait accum
filmed “Are you trying to break a record? The by themselves hemselves aliquamet, verosti or roped-in relatives. velenis nit autem
longest answer given by a politician
The lip sync battle between Marcus which doesn’t contain a single
Bourbon Brigstocke and Rachel Parris, left, was a biscuit crumb of information?”
Quite.