After Dinner Speaker
This year we are joined by Ross Kemp, a BAFTA award-winning documentary-maker, actor, and author who rose to prominence in the BBC1 soap opera, Eastenders. Since 2006 he has received international recognition for his award-winning documentaries.
After a brief meeting with a member of the infamous ‘Bloods’ gang in California Ross went to Sky1 with the idea for a new series – ‘Gangs’ for which he won a BAFTA for ‘Best Factual Series’ and was nominated on another two occasions.
After making 27 programmes around the world, Ross moved on from Gangs to a new series: Ross Kemp in Afghanistan, where he spent time from 2007 to 2012 with army regiments: 1 Royal Anglian, 5 Scots, 1 Royal Irish, and twice with 45 Commando. Ross and his team were nominated for a BAFTA for ‘Best Factual Series and won an AIB International Media Excellence Award for ‘International TV Personality’.
Ross and his production company ‘Freshwater Films’ have also made documentaries on international piracy, in Gaza, Israel, and the Amazon Rainforest to ‘Extreme World’, which saw him travel the world to destinations such as Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, The Congo, Ukraine, Syria and Iraq. Ross and his team won ‘Documentary Story of The Year’ and ‘Foreign Press Association’ in 2017 with a documentary in Libya, and recently won a Visionary Honours Award for best ‘Television Show of The Year’ for ‘Ross Kemp Living With…’ on ITV.
A Sunday Times Best Selling author, his titles include Ross Kemp on Gangs, Ross Kemp on Afghanistan, Ross Kemp on Pirates, Warriors & Raiders, and his latest, A-Z of Hell: How Not to Travel the World.
Ross considers himself very lucky to have spent 35 years working in television but his great loves remain from family to friends, his dog Bruno, his home in the country, food and wine.
Ross is a huge rugby fan and is associated with the military charity – Help for Heroes, as well as the Royal British Legion, Combat Stress, and an Ambassador for The Endeavour Fund.