Ross Kemp Living With…, Thursday 25 July, 7.30pm, ITV/HD (CH 103/113). Also available for 7 days in Catch Up > Channels > ITV Hub

“Some people still think I’m Grant Mitchell,” Ross Kemp told The Guardian. Now 54, Kemp played the EastEnders hardman for ten years. And while some people might still instantly associate him with the character, he’s done his best to shed his bad boy image. “He (Mitchell) had a Neanderthal-type thuggery about him. I’m not necessarily professing to be the brightest person on the planet, but I think once people have a conversation with me, they work out that he was just a character I played,” Kemp said.

But character or no character, the real-life Kemp is hard as nails – he has to be to tackle the topics he covers in his documentary series. In a career move that many didn’t see coming, Kemp has established himself as a well-respected journalist as well as an actor. And in his latest show, Ross Kemp Living With…, he’s taking on difficult issues such as homelessness and gang crime by living alongside the very people affected by them.