Martin and Roman Kemp are a father-son duo who have become well known for their close bond which has been best demonstrated by their joint appearances on Celebrity Gogglebox.
As I joined a Zoom meeting with the duo I joked that I expected to see the pair in the same room, not on separate calls, and Roman, 33, quickly puts to bed any rumours that he still lives at home.
“Do you know it’s the weirdest thing? This honestly, and if you can write this, that would be brilliant because I don’t understand why people think this! Everyone still says, “So do you live with your mum and dad?” I’m 33 years old!” said Roman. “My mum and dad wanted to kick me out when I was 18!”
“That’s not true,” Martin immediately interjected. “But I’ll tell you, it is true, and so many people, like TV producers, come to me and they say, ‘Oh, we want to do a show of you guys living at home.’ I said, ‘We don’t live at home. We split up a long time ago.’”
Roman conceded that although he might have flown the nest, he’s grateful that Gogglebox provides him with the opportunity to come back home. “Gogglebox is a really nice one for us because it does mean that I can go back home, and and and and I’ve got like dedicated time where I’m just kind of with my mum and dad.”
Roman, 33, and Martin, 64, are now set to appear in a new three part Channel 4 series that sees the father and son road trip across Ireland, exploring mythology of the country while also learning more about one another. Their relationship forms the backbone of the series, with both of them proud to honestly portray their close bond on screen.
“You would call it oversharing, I call that family lunch,” said Roman. “I guess it’s a different dynamic to maybe what some people have in their families, but it’s one that we’re super proud of, and I think it’s something that we can be as honest and open with with each other, my mum, my sister included.”
“Oversharing sometimes mustn’t get lost because it’s about respect,” added Martin. “And if you have that as a kind of a bedrock, then you can overshare and you can take the Mickey out of each other. But you still know that that respect is there. ”
Roman has been an advocate for men’s mental health for years and has fronted documentaries in which he opened up about his own struggles with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts.
“I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of Ro and what he’s done, and the way that he’s put his hand up and said, ’look at me, I’ve been through this,” said Martin earnestly. “So many people, parents, will stop me when I’m out and about, and they say, ‘I just want to say thank you to your boy,’ and nothing makes me happier than when people say good things about my kids.”
While Roman might have confided more in his mother, Pepsi and Shirlie star, Shirlie Holliman once upon a time, he reveals that he and his father have been able to have more conversations about mental health in recent years.
“I’ll be real with you, in terms of a mental health perspective, that’s something that is more of a chat that me and my mum would have. But over the last five years it’s been really nice to kind of open that conversation more between me and my dad, through documentaries or through moments that we’ve had.
“Definitely within the last six years my dad far more understands my mental state than he did previously, and I guess so do I in a way.”
He added: “I see it as an amazing advantage to be able to talk to my dad about anything, and there not be a taboo around certain subjects.”
Shirlie was frequently brought up by both Martin and Roman throughout the chat, with Roman at one point joking his father likes to call his wife every half and hour, and has a Sex and the City ringtone for when she calls (Shirlie has opted for the Addams Family theme tune for Martin’s calls).
“Roman was shocked about how much I used to call his mum, but I can’t see any reason why I shouldn’t!” Martin said.
“I swear to God, every half hour [Shirlie’s] phone’s gone, and it’s the the same ringtone, and I was just like, oh, he’s calling again, and he’s like, ‘what you doing now?’”
The frequent phone calls with Shirlie make an appearance in the show, but nonetheless Martin maintains that the series concept is all about a ‘boys weekend’.
Martin explained: “It’s Roman and I on a boys’ week around Ireland, where we get to know each other in the car, and I end up showing him stuff around Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and it’s just a beautiful father and son trip.”
“I like that you’ve said get to know each other. Right, we do know each other very well,” joked Roman.
Martin and Roman’s Irish Road Trip will see the pair travel across Dublin, where Martin lived for some time when he was playing with Spandau Ballet. The duo explore some of the more fantastical stories attached with Ireland’s past, which Martin was completely absorbed by, but left Roman slightly more sceptical.
“Ro and I are really different. Ro likes the kind of the history that he can touch, and I like the history that you have to imagine – the ghost stories and the legends.
“We went to one place where they told us there was a vampire that was buried upside down underneath a rock, and I completely took it in. I thought, ‘this is amazing, he’s down there’, and Ro didn’t believe it at all,” said Martin.
“I like stories, every time you turn a corner, every time you turn a corner in Ireland, no matter where it is, there’s always a myth behind it or a legend behind it of what happened in that place, and there’s always a story.
“And then when people tell you those stories, it’s not like, ‘oh, you might believe it if you want, but you know we don’t know’. They tell you those stories as if they are real, and they believe them 100%. But they’re stories that have been handed down from generation to generation, and that’s what makes them so powerful.”
Roman added that his dad always spoke about how amazing Ireland was when he lived there in the 80s, only making him more interested in exploring the culture.
“He would always talk to me about how great the people are and how they’ve got all this mythology and not just that they’ve got the history alongside that,” said Roman. “And it’s breath taking visually, aesthetically and geographically.”
But how does this trip compare to Roman’s Race Across The World trip with his sister Harley Moon?
“It’s incomparable because one is one is the worst scenarios, like the toughest moments that you’re going to face, where you feel like giving up all the time,” Roman replied and then paused. “And then the other is going on a travelling trip with your sister.”
Martin and Roman’s Irish Road Trip is set to air on August 11 on Channel 4
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