Eddie Izzard – actor, comedian, transvestite and marathon-runner extraordinaire – is about to embark on a remarkable journey using his own DNA as the road map. Locked within each of us is a genetic history book that reveals not only our deep ancestry, but also the migration of mankind across the globe. Using recent scientific breakthroughs and the help of geneticists, Eddie will unlock the secrets of where he – and we – came from. It will make Eddie the first person in Britain to use his own DNA to retrace his ancestors’ journey across thousands of miles and nearly 200,000 years of history. A two-part special screening on consecutive days, this is the epic story of humanity’s journey from our shared origins in Africa 10,000 generations ago all the way to Eddie Izzard. In episode one, Eddie will explore his maternal ancestral journey – a trip that will be close to his heart, as Eddie’s mum died when he was a young boy. It’s a voyage that will take him from Southern Africa to the Red Sea, on to Turkey, and up through Italy and Scandinavia before finally reaching Britain on a journey he hopes will make him feel more connected to his mum as he bridges the gap between his genetic and own life history. En route, he’ll meet local communities with whom he shares geneticmarkers – distant cousins separated by thousands of years of history. Eddie begins on the outskirts of Namibia’s Kalahari Desert where he meets the San Bushmen and learns to make fire. He might set tongues wagging with his painted nails, but Eddie is also moved to discover how at home he feels with his most distant ancestral cousins. He travels to Djibouti and goes fishing with a local fisherwoman at the point where the Red Sea narrows and where modern humans probably first left Africa about 60,000 years ago. Here he’s just 35kms from the Arabian country of Yemen, where it’s thought modern humans first stepped outside Africa and where Eddie himself was born. In T
In episode two of this unique series following Eddie Izzard as he uses his own DNA as a road map to retrace his ancestral journey, Eddie learns about his Dad’s lineage. Eddie’s genetic time travelling begins with the Bakola pygmies in Cameroon, his – and our – most distant male relatives with whom we shared an ancestor some 142,000 years ago. Eddie joins them as they go hunting, tries to copy their dance moves, and learns how the Bakola creation story tallies with recent genetic discoveries. In Dubai, Eddie discovers how the human population exploded out of Arabia, and meets an ancestral cousin who’s led a one-man population explosion of his own. In Israel, he learns about his ancestors’ romantic run-in with Neanderthals, and the surprising feature he still has in common with them. In Vienna, Eddie meets a genetic cousin with whom he shared a Stone Age ancestor and gets to grips with Ice Age tailoring. He finds ancient paintings left by his distant ancestors in the French Pyrenees, and heads to Lower Saxony in Northern German to learn about a newly discovered and extremely rare genetic marker in his DNA. Finally Eddie heads home to try and discover when his male ancestors came to England – the final part of his male-line jigsaw – before meeting back up with his dad to fill him in on their family history.