Radio Times: Review by:; Jane Rackham

“I’m not used to sad things in my day,” says MasterChef’s Gregg Wallace, “I have happy days. The saddest thing that happens to me is someone overseasons a soufflé.” So it’s inevitable that the big old softie sheds more than a tear or two over some of the tragedies he uncovers in his family tree.

He starts by investigating his great-grandfather Henry Springett, who the family had dismissed as a “bad ’un” because he’d deserted his wife and kids and disappeared without trace. What tickles a gleeful Wallace is that
Henry was once a greengrocer. Unfortunately, the rest of Henry’s life is a catalogue of misery, infidelity and catastrophe. So Wallace is optimistic that the posh portrait of his great-great-grandmother will reveal a cheerier life. But no. It, too, turns Wallace into an emotional wreck. “I just want to go home and hug the dog,” he says sorrowfully.

About this programme

2/10. MasterChef co-presenter Gregg Wallace solves a family mystery as he discovers what happened to his great-grandfather, who abandoned his wife and children and was thought to have been a naval deserter. The food expert is also given a formal portrait of his great-great-grandmother, but the tale of its origins and the fate of its sitter shocks the recipient.