Actor and stage director Derek Jacobi enjoyed a relatively humble upbringing in Leytonstone, London, where his father ran a sweet shop and his mother worked in a drapery, but research into his maternal side of the family soon uncovers a link to a far more intriguing past. Discovering that his great-grandmother's name was Salome Laplain, Jacobi finds that he is descended from a wealthy French Huguenot who fled religious persecution, and who has connections to royalty on this side of the channel.