NEWS UPDATE (17/8/22)

Ariel and the team are very pleased to announce they are working hard on the upcoming series of Long Lost Family (Series 13) and Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace (Series 5), which will be airing on ITV in 2023.

2011 to now 

Long Lost Family and Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace

Ariel Bruce is the lead search and social work consultant for ITV’s documentary series Long Lost Family and Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace. Ariel has undertaken the research to trace and make contact with missing family members for every series since 2011.

Ariel works closely with her research team on both documentary programmes. The team are: Louise Baldock, Andrew Bayliss, Sally Berman, Janet Bishop, Carolynne Bull ASA, Catrina Milford, Cheryl Oliver and Dario Regazzi.

Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace, which is presented by Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell, was announced as the winner of the Features category at the 2021 BAFTA awards (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) and the winner of the Best Factual Series category at the 2021 Rose d’Or awards.

Long Lost Family was recently announced as the winner of the 2021 TV Choice Award for Best Lifestyle category. The documentary series previously won the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) for Best Feature in 2014, as well as the prestigious Royal Television Society [RTS] Programme Awards for the Popular Factual and Features category in 2012.

Further information on this series can be found on the ITV website: Long Lost Family

The Gift

Ariel acted as the series search consultant and undertook the tracing work for BBC One Series called The Gift. The Gift is a series that traces and reunites people who have shared an often important life changing experience. Made by W2W, who also make Who Do You Think You Are and Long Lost Family. Ariel was very pleased to have been able to work on this series. The first episode was broadcast on Tuesday 10th February 2016.

2014

The Great Train Robbery

A film documentary, A Tale of Two Thieves, released in 2014, claims to solve one of the Great Train Robbery mysteries that dogged investigators at the time – the identity of the infamous “Ulsterman”, credited with being the inside man at the Royal Mail. The film-makers employed Ariel Bruce to identify him. She is extensively interviewed as part of the film  ,  See The Great Train Robber unmasked: The Irish Independent, 5th October 2014. And also Great Train Robbery cash was passed on to Catholic church, claims film’, Duncan Campbell, The Guardian 2nd September 2014.

Previously, Ariel’s work has featured in a number of television documentaries including ‘Relative Strangers‘ (Channel 4, 1991), in which two of her searches were followed from start to finish, ‘Forgotten Mothers‘ (Channel 4, 1997), ‘Looking for My Mum‘, (Channel 4, 2001) and ‘Looking for Dad‘ (Channel 4, 2003). Many of these documentaries have been broadcast around the world. She has also been a guest on various television and radio programmes including ‘This Morning‘ (ITV1) and ‘Women’s Hour‘ (BBC Radio 4). Ariel has also undertaken searches and acted as a consultant  for documentary makers including Polly Bide, Bob Woffinden and Nick Broomfield.

2009

Ariel was the research consultant on the Channel 4 documentary ‘The Homecoming‘. Read about it in the Telegraph and Community Care

2001

Fifteen – Daisy Asquith

In 2001 Ariel worked as a consultant on Daisy Asquith’s documentary series ‘Fifteen’ for Windfall Films. Ariel helped Asquith to reunite one of the three protagonist’s with their birth mother, and facilitated a meeting for the documentary.

An interview with Daisy Asquith can be read here (Click Link)

1992

Hanratty: The Mystery of Deadman’s Hill

Ariel worked as a researcher on this “True Stories” programme, produced by Bob Woofinden for Channel 4.