Actor Ross Kemp, known for his tough-guy roles, embarks on a different kind of adventure this Tuesday as he looks into his family history on BBC One’s “Who Do You Think You Are?” The episode follows Kemp as he investigates his maternal great-grandfather, Arthur “Pop” Chalmers, and long-held family tales of shipwrecks at sea.
The research leads Kemp to Casablanca, retracing his great-grandfather’s steps, where the Chalmers family lore of surviving the Duchess of York’s sinking in 1943. He also uncovers a more troubling chapter on his paternal side, discovering that his four-times great-grandfather served as a drummer boy during the Napoleonic Wars and uncovering the story of his great-great-uncle, Albert Chalmers, who was blacklisted from pubs and sent to an “inebriate reformatory.”
It’s a journey that reveals a family history as rich and varied as Kemp’s own on-screen career. The episode airs Tuesday, May 6 at 9:00 PM GMT on BBC One.
