Journalist Frank Gardner was very close to his late mother and is keen to know more about her side of the family. Frank's mother always told him that the family arrived in Britain with the Normans. Frank sets off to discover if there is any truth in the rumour. Along the way, he traces his family tree back to his ten times great-grandfather Sir Michael Stanhope - a knight of the Tudor court - who was accused of treason. But Frank's journey doesn't end there, and he is astonished to discover that his mother's suspicions are closer to the truth than he could ever have imagined.

Actor and writer Mark Gatiss has always had a love of storytelling and a passion for the ghastly and ghoulish but has always wondered where it comes from. So when he discovers that his mother's side of thefamily goes back five generations to the wilds of Northern Ireland, his imagination is awakened. Mark travels to Ireland, where he untangles a tale of rags to riches and finds out that his family were storytellers and (allegedly) vampire slayers!