Comedy star’s ancestors ‘too dull’ to feature in BBC show

A BBC comedy actor will not have his family story screened on Who Do You Think You Are? because his ancestors were deemed too boring for television.

Stephen Mangan, who starred opposite Steve Coogan in I’m Alan Partridge and with Tamsin Greig and Matt Leblanc in Episodes, was rejected after the production team discovered his ancestors were all “from the same place in Ireland”, said the Mail On Sunday.

The 50-year-old was said to be the latest high-profile figure whose relatives were considered too dull for the show, which unearths surprising or moving tales from celebrity family histories. Cherie Blair, Eamonn Holmes and Michael Parkinson were said to have had stories unworthy of airtime.

In 2009 Michael Parkinson, the chat show host, warned researchers his story would not be interesting enough for broadcast. But they insisted all celebrities made similar protestations – only to call back six weeks later to tell him he was right.

He said at the time: “My story was so boring they had to cancel the entire project. I was gutted.” The following year researchers spent two days interviewing Holmes, but he never heard back from them. “We come from a very boring family,” he said.

In 2014 Cherie Blair admitted she had been “thrilled” when producers approached her to take part, but the programme was never filmed.

The Daily Telegraph approached the producers, Wall To Wall, and representatives of Stephen Mangan for comment but did not receive a response.

In an interview in 2014, Mangan said: “Everyone thinks I’m posh, but Dad was a builder and Mum worked in a bar in Camden and they lived in Kilburn.”