Aisling Bea on WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
Aisling Bea is well into her pregnancy while filming WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?, which makes it all the more fitting that the Kildare-born, London-based comedian and actor finds herself turning toward home and family, embarking on a kind of metaphorical journey back in time. Her episode follows the familiar formula of a genealogy series that has built its reputation on reducing celebrities to tears as they uncover Tiny Tim-esque ancestors and the indignities heaped on them, whether in the workhouse or aboard an East India Company steam packet bound for Chennai. But Bea resists the easy win of blubbing it up for the cameras, even as her trek from her aunt’s home in Laois onward to Limerick and Kerry, tracing her ancestors’ footsteps, remains unmistakably emotive throughout.
Bea first made her name through stand-up comedy, and she has been candid about how her personality was shaped growing up amid what she describes as a “big gang of very vocal alpha females,” a household dynamic that took hold following the death of her father when she was still a child. On this journey around Ireland, though, she resists the urge to lean too heavily into the jokes. She does, however, find genuine humor in the image of a British camera crew trailing her across the Irish Sea so she can dig into her family’s ties to the Easter Rising and to the revival of the Irish language in Kerry.
