WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? RUPERT PENRY-JONES!

I've never liked fair-haired blue-eyed blokes very much so this is not the reason why I like Rupert Penry-Jones. He happened to be the hero in my favourite TV show, Spooks, for several seasons and being I not blind and him so handsome and a good actor, I couldn't avoit being interested if not attracted. More in his Adam Carter than in the man himself.Then I saw him in the uniform of my favourite Austen hero, Captain Wentworth, and he was so charming! "Too beautiful" many commented. Beauty is never too much!
I didn't know much about him, I had never seen interviews or read about him on line, but thanks to a friend living in England I heard he had taken part in this real life show, "Who do you think you are", so I started wishing to see it. Till last night, when I finally saw it. 

It was a very good programme, so interesting, and an emotional watching. In this show, celebrities go hunting in search for new about their ancestors. The previous week it had been the turn of Rupert's wife, Dervla Kirwan.

 At first Rupert visits his mother, actress Angela Thorne, (his father, Welsh actor Peter Penry-Jones died last year) and they talk about her parents, especially her father/his grandpa. There is a period in Mr Thorne's life, he didn't like to talk about and Rupert and his mother would like to discover more: as a doctor in the British Army, William Thorne served  as a doctor with the Indian Medical Corps at the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy  when the Allies were forcing the Germans out of our country. So Rupert leaves  England for Italy (Cassino,  centre of Italy, Lazio, not far from my town) to search for news about his grandpa. There he meets an old British officer who was at Cassino at that time, who didn't know his grandfather personally but saw the atrocity of the war with his own eyes. "It was like watching a horror movie, only you were inside, you were part of the movie".

It was touching. I've told you somewhere in this blog   (HERE) that I was brought up and lullied at night NOT with fairy-tales by parents but with true, war stories by my own granpa. So, you can imagine how touching the situation sounded to me. Well, Rupert was astonished and moved when he discovered his grandfather had taken care of and saved 1500 wounded soldiers!

 Then in the second part of the programme Rupert goes to India, where his mother lived until the age of 5 (his mother was born in  Karachi, in what is now Pakistan from British parents). Rupert often heard from his mother that there was Indian blood in their veins but he couldn't believe that: "just look at me! Do I look anything Indian?"

So he starts a new quest  to discover more. He is really fascinated by the ancient documents he can touch and read. He succeeds in going back to 8 generations before himself to know more about his Indian roots. From time to time, he had some difficulty while reading the documents they showed him, not only for the peculiar handwriting. He candidly admits he is dyslexic!

Rupert resulted a very likeable  man and it was good to see him actually taking notes as the stories unfolded.

Many people prefer stars or  public figures remain behind the screen of their glamorous facade  and keep their private lives and personalities secret. I'm not one of them. I love to discover these people we think so special and heroic are just very human, just like us. I appreciate them even more. 

P.S. An additional value to the show: narrator - Mark Strong! 

Guess what? Now I've added a new wish to my already endless wishlist! I've started dreaming of a very special issue of  "Who do you think you are"... Please BBC, can you try to get Richard Armitage for your next series ? He certainly has interesting ancestors. One was even a cotton-mill owner like his character , John Thornton!