What next, Ant and Dec in Iraq? Paul Daniels in Guantanamo? Tess Daly in outer space? Actually, that’s not such a bad idea ...The craze for firing lightweight celebrities at heavyweight subject matter, spawned by last year’s Peaches Geldof-fronted Beginner’s Guide to Islam, is continued at this year’s Sheffield DocFest with Ross Kemp in Afghanistan, allegedly “his toughest production yet” (how quickly he forgets his one night stand with Kathy Mitchell).
But while it might not assuage your concerns about the fate of serious reportage in the wake of BBC budget cuts, rest assured there’s more to modern documentary than slapheaded thesps playing at soldiers in the Asian desert.
This year’s festival, which runs until Sunday, lays on a plethora of intriguing titbits, including the films A Jihad for Love, which looks at the hidden lives of gay and lesbian Muslims and Alexis Arquette: She’s my Brother, the tale of a male-to-female transsexual with the dubious luck of having been born into one of Hollywood’s most famous showbiz dynasties, plus a QA session with mumbling spec-adjuster Louis Theroux
www.sheffdocfest.com.