Who knew that the key to getting your foot in the door to becoming one of TV’s leading war documentarians was playing a hard nut on a soap opera?
Yet, somehow, Ross Kemp has managed to find himself constantly being thrown at the frontlines of battle and the criminal underbelly of gang culture. The strangest thing of all though, is that he’s actually rather good at it.
Despite having nothing more on his CV than a combat ready hairdo, some experience around fake guns in the ITV drama Ultimate Force and playing a rather pants gangster on Eastenders, Ross Kemp has over the last few years made himself the de facto presenter for gritty documentaries.
With his admirably calm and measured delivery though, what could be an actor hamming it up when faced with the real life version of what they pretend to do for a living turned into something entirely different. A composed look at a world most of us never will, or want, to be part of.
In fact, Ross’s natural neutrality in front of camera and apparent common knowledge with his subjects actually helped the documentaries massively. That his opener Ross Kemp On Gangs snagged itself a BAFTA speaks for itself.
That the show’s overall team of researchers and journalists provided Kemp with excellent interview opportunities and usually unfilmable situations put the show at the front of the pack.
The same can be said about Kemp’s documentaries in Afghanistan and Gaza, with Kemp serenely seeming to take the surrounding chaos almost in stride. That he may simply be acting to brush off the tendencies of fear is probably true, but isn’t that what all TV journalists must do at some point.
Kemp isn’t just a blank slate for the documentary though, as he often offers very sage and astute observations on his situations that you really wouldn’t think he might come out with. Critical, insightful and level headed, Kemp is a rather excellent proponent for this type of documentary.
With Extreme World (which returns to Sky1 tonight) and Battle for The Amazon though, Kemp’s moved from the familiarity of criminal subculture and the military to look at wider social and environmental issues. Heady stuff from the man who used to Grant Mitchell.
The amazing thing of all is that Kemp is now no longer considered an actor. That Kemp’s not actually dramatically acted in over half a decade shows that the transformation is complete and gives those claims real credence.
While simply putting celebrities at the heart of documentaries is usually terrible idea unless it’s about them personally (which lets Who Do You Think You Are? off the hook), Ross Kemp’s continued success as an investigative documentarian is beyond all shadow of a doubt a massive exception to the rule.
MaleXtra Cameron Smith