TV & Radio
All the must-see/hear programmes
Starts Thursday 18 April, 9pm W
While we impatiently await the next series of WDYTYA?, the latest episodes of the US version of the programme are coming to W for their first UK transmission. The new run of shows, first broadcast across the Atlantic last year, kicks off with Jon Cryer. The actor, who found fame as ‘Ducky’ in the 1980s teen movie Pretty in Pink, learns how his Scottish 9x great grandfather, James Adams, was sent to the Americas as an indentured servant in the middle of the 17th century and was forced to work in an ironworks.
The research of actor Laverne Cox ( Orange is the New Black) is complicated by her African-American heritage. Many slaves didn’t have surnames but, following emancipation at the end of the American Civil War, found themselves assigned the surname of their former owners. Understandably, many rejected these names, including Cox’s 2x great grandmother, Georgiana Banks. Cox also learns about her 3x great grandfather Bolden Banks, who registered to vote in 1867 in Dallas County, Alabama – a time and place when white residents often tried to intimidate black voters out of exercising their democratic rights.
Actor Megan Mullally (acerbic Karen Walker in Will & Grace) hits research problems for a different reason: the way so many documents shed light on the lives of our male forebears while barely, if at all, mentioning female ancestors. Nonetheless, Mullally is able to catch glimpses of the life of her 2x great grandmother, Elizabeth Mullally Venable, who was forced to flee the South during the Civil War era.
Looking ahead at episodes we will preview in more detail later, we can also expect to see Hilary Duff, Molly Shannon, Jean Smart, Mandy Moore, Josh Duhamel, Regina King and Matthew Morrison.