Last night's TV review: Best Factual Series doesn't tell full story

Published on Monday 8 September 2008 20:11

Ross Kemp On Gangs, Sky 1 Vinnie Jones' Toughest Cops, ITV4

FROM their guest appearances in Extras, we know that Ross Kemp would back down from a fight with Vinnie Jones. In the field of TV documentary, though, Kemp has the advantage: last year he won, to general astonishment, a Bafta for Best Factual Series, which is presumably now sitting on his mantelpiece alongside his awards from Inside Soap and TV Quick. Who would have thought it when he was narrowing his eyes menacingly at Ian Beale?

So now, in Ross Kemp On Gangs, Bafta-winner Ross Kemp – it just doesn't sound right, does it? – returns triumphantly with a new series of Bafta-winning factualness. Here, he investigated the gangs of Bulgarian Roma, who are said to be coming over to Britain to pick pockets on the London Underground.

After hanging out with the London Transport Police for the couple of seconds it took them to pick up two such thieves – "you're new," say the suspects to Kemp, laconically – he went to Bulgaria. There, the wealthy leader of Euroroma, a political party representing gypsy peoples, blamed all the roving criminals on a particular clan, the Kalderash.

Kemp, by now, is a more than competent presenter. He has a habit of … pausing for … emphasis in his voiceovers, but that's just an idiosyncrasy. And he does a decent job of posing questions and responding with reasonable quickness when a member of Euroroma turned the questioning back on him. But he seems cautious of taking a direct line; his style of reporting is to let his interviewees speak for themselves, putting the accusations of others to them but not venturing a strong opinion – even letting a group of young Nazis air their extreme views on the "gypsy scum". Finally finding some of the Kalderash who agreed to talk on camera, swathed in disguises, they told him: "We are the gypsies who steal." But, they claimed, they're not the only ones and had been forced into it by discrimination. This seemed to leave Kemp confused: "What do we know?" he pondered. "We could have been duped completely. We don't know what goes on inside the Roma world. How can we begin to guess what's really going on there?"

Well, if he can't, how is the viewer to make a judgment? In some ways this was admirable neutrality, but it showed up the drawback with this type of documentary. It's not made by a correspondent with knowledge of the area or the background, or even – most likely – with more than a week or two to research. It's someone dropping in who by definition can only present a very partial picture.

Kemp probably knows this and it doesn't mean what his (Bafta-winning) series does is without value, just that it's not the full story. That said, it's an absorbing programme and he even managed to make us forget Albert Square.

If the idea of Ross Kemp, Bafta-winner, is weird, what about this: Vinnie Jones was once voted Best British Actor (by Empire magazine, for being a top geezer in Guy Ritchie's Snatch). He beat Sir Michael Caine, Christian Bale and Robert Carlyle, who must all have been absolutely stunned. Never has a man parlayed a reputation for a dirty tackle so far.

He now has his own series, Vinnie Jones' Toughest Cops, but it's hardly on a par with Kemp's. His job is simply to read out – perfectly adequately – the voiceover to footage of Colombia's police commandos in action. There's not a lot of depth to it, frankly, it's just designed for guys who like to watch guns being waved around dramatically while Jones makes gruff comments.