Who Do You Think You Are? review – arise, King Danny Dyer

I’m not usually a massive fan of Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC1). My own genealogy doesn’t interest me much; I want to know about the relatives I know and knew (my parents and grandparents) and the ones they knew and were instrumental in making them who they were. Before that … meh. So why would I care about anyone else’s family trees? But Danny Dyer’s hunt for ancestry is brilliant – because he goes about it hilariously, and because he does find something pretty cool and unexpected.

Danny – most recently and most famously landlord of the Queen Vic in EastEnders – is hoping to surprise a few people, who might be expecting him to be related to criminals. “I want to freak a few people out, you know, be related to aristocracy or something.”

It doesn’t start well. In an (actual factual) East End pub he meets up with the old block from which he was chipped. He wasn’t around much when Danny was growing up, which is probably why he’s so eager to find strong male relations further back. Daddy Dyer can’t provide aristocracy, only a few black-and-white photos, a workhouse, and a criminal. No one’s freaking out yet, though the criminal is a sad story of a woman – Danny’s great-great-gran – who tried to conceal her dead baby.

Ancestors called Buttivant (“however you pronounce it, Bootivant, I’d say Bu’ivan’ – there’s no Ts in it”) bring hope of Frenchness: “Am I French? How French am I? I know I look French and all that.” French nobility peu’-ê’re? It’s another cul-de-sac though; the Buttivants came from Whitechapel. “I just hope this journey gets a little bit more jolly to be honest,” says Danny, jolly meaning more posh and more minted.

It does, thanks to an expert, who finds a 10 x great-grandfather with an actual manor – as in a big Tudor pile, not just the part of town he lived in. “I think it’s the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen,” says Danny, standing outside Otley Hall in Suffolk.

That’s before he’s seen Helmingham Hall in the next village, which is where his 11 x great-gran was from. “What a gaff you’ve got here,” he says to the man who has lowered his drawbridge so Danny can drive his SUV over the moat. They make a lovely pair – Tim and Danny, Lord Tollemache of Helmingham and the landlord of the Vic in Walford, a proper old-school plummy toff and a proper East End geezer. Now cousins from neighbouring counties (Danny lives in Essex), they might as well be from different planets. You don’t have to approve of the English class system to be amused by it, especially extremes of it.

Danny’s amazing social ascent continues. In the church Tim introduces Danny to Catherine Cromwell. “I’m going to put the lips on her Tim,” says Danny, kissing the portrait of his ancestor, a lady in a rough ruff and a bit of rough. And her great-great-grandfather was … Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s right-hand man. Yeah, Wolf Hall – they share that, Danny and his 15 x great-grandfather: both stars of BBC drama. And both controversial earls of Essex (only one official), villains, canny, cheeky, cocky, top dogs, started humbly and done good, against the odds. Let’s hope Danny ends better.

“You could have a right rave in ’ere couldn’t you babe, eh?” Danny says to Cromwell’s biographer in the great hall at Hampton Court. The gaffs just keep on getting grander and bigger, as does Danny’s head. He’s walking round like he owns the place. Maybe he does.

And that’s not the end of it. Cromwell’s son Henry, from whom Danny is descended, was married to someone called Seymour; go up her branch, through people called Hotspur and Plantagenet, and you get to Edward III. Yes, Danny Dyer is a direct descendant of Edward III, and he’s got a scroll to prove it. Queen Vic to King Ted. He says he’s going to treat himself to his own ruff: “Just bowl about with it, if anyone questions it I’ll explain why I’m wearing a ruff, and then they’ll have to walk away won’t they, embarrassed?”

Never mind ruff, what about a crown? I’m thinking God Save King Daniel “My blood is his blood, I can’t compute it in my brain,” says Danny, at Edward’s tomb in Westminster Abbey.

You might say Dyer has millions of 22 x great-grandads, it’s not surprising one of them is Edward III, and you’re probably descended from him too; but that would make you a spoilsport. And you can’t spoil The Best WDYTYA Ever, a lovely and super-amusing hour of television. Respect, too, to the genealogy folk, for finding the connection.

Danny drives home to Essex, with the extra swagger that comes from knowing his blood runs blue. “It’s been lovely, it’s been a wonderful journey,” he says to the crew. “But can you get off my drive now please, paupers.” Ha!