Ross Kemp becomes the first man filmed swimming in the wreck of the Mary Rose as he reveals the secrets of a doomed ship

He will always be EastEnders Grant Mitchell to millions, but Ross Kemp has shown he recognizes him a lot more for his documentary work these days.

Since leaving the BBC soap in 2016, the TV hardman has filmed factual pieces from the battlefields of Afghanistan to HMP Belmarsh prison, the depths of the ocean and beyond.

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Ross told me: “It’s always the taxi drivers and the checkout people in the supermarkets that are my barometer.

“It’s the people who serve you at the deli counter and tell you they like the dive show.”

You’ll be happy to hear that Ross is back in his wetsuit for a new Sky HISTORY series, Ross Kemp: Deep Sea Treasure Hunter, and also a new immersive experience at The Mary Rose Museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard called Dive The Mary Rose 4D tells .

The series, which will air April 10, follows the action man as he dives deep into the history of Britain and first in a TV swim through the wreck of the Mary Rose, first in a TV swim into the wreck of the Mary Rose.

Former EastEnders star Ross added: “If you had told me four years ago Ross you would derive real success from finding something that hasn’t been touched or seen in 500 years, I would have said not really – but boy is it addicting.

“I understand why some people want to go out in the pouring rain at the weekend and search fields for Saxon trinkets!

“It’s like shaking hands with ghosts.

“I started scuba diving as a hobby in the 1990s and then someone suggested I dive shipwrecks.

“We dived at the Mary Rose site, only a handful of people get a chance to go down to the site and check it out, most of the starboard side is actually in the museum, we dived at the front of the boat, there’s a little ditch that caused by the chain the boy attached to warn people to stay away and we found some artifacts.”

Ross and the team of experts found pieces of glazed pottery thought to date from the Tudor period.

It gave him a buzz unlike any he’d felt before.

That comes despite its documentary film titles with murky themes like Ross Kemp on Gangs, Ross Kemp in Afghanistan, Ross Kemp: The Fight Against ISIS, Welcome to HMP Belmarsh with Ross Kemp and Ross Kemp: Extreme World.

How does his current work compare?

Ross said: “I don’t think they are comparable. These are two different branches of television. “Both are documentaries, you can’t compare going to prison to diving on the Mary Rose.

“I’m very fortunate to have a fairly wide range of work at the moment, last year I did a game show (Bridge of Lies for the BBC), I did a diving documentary for Sky History and I’ve just done a drama for Channel 5 so I feel very fortunate to have this variety of work in a year.

Speaking of the Dive The Mary Rose 4D attraction, Ross added, “For anyone who doesn’t normally come to museums, this is very exciting and brings everything to life. Come here and experience what it’s like.”

Ross Kemp narrates Dive The Mary Rose 4D – the new immersive cinematic experience at the Mary Rose Museum, Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. Readers can visit www.maryrose.org.

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