TO CUT A LONG STORY SHORT (THE KEMPS: ALL TRUE)
Spandau Ballet are one of those British bands that epitomise the 1980s.
Hear their name and you instantly think of the New Romantics.
You recall big hair, baggy clothes, natty black and white suits, their appearances on 'Top of the Pops' and at Live Aid.
Most of all you think of their two biggest hits, 'True' and 'Gold' - unless you're a Northern Ireland Troubles song masochist and adore the execrable 'Through The Barricades'.
Outside of the lead singer Tony Hadley, the best known members of the band were brothers Gary and Martin Kemp, the lead guitarist and bassist.
After appearing together as 'The Krays' in Peter Medak's so so 1990 gangster movie about the infamous East End of London twins, the brothers continued to forge acting careers after the band broke up.
Gary went to Hollywood and landed roles in the Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston smash hit 'The Bodyguard,' on 'The Larry Sanders Show,' Roger Avary's indie flick 'Killing Zoe' as well as, closer to home, roles in the BBC series 'Casualty,' the channels anthology series 'Murder In Mind' and 'The Bill' spin-off on ITV 'Murder Investigation Team'.
Musically, he has gone on to compose musical scores for TV shows and released two solo albums.
Martin focused on acting with appearances in 'The Outer Limits' and 'Highlander' TV shows and following surgery to remove two brain tumours, he was thrust back into the public's consciousness as Steve Owen in the popular BBC1 soap 'Eastenders'.
After leaving the soap, he went on to direct a well received horror feature film 'Stalker' and appear in theatre and TV roles, playing the Childcatcher in a touring production of 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang'.
In recent years, his appearances on Channel 4's 'Celebrity Gogglebox' with his wife Shirlie and son Roman and on the ITV breakfast programme 'Martin and Roman's Sunday Best' has given him an even higher profile.
Spandau reformed briefly in 2009, making a seventh album 'Once More' which reached Number 7 in the charts, kicking off a world tour in Dublin and selling out the O2 Arena in London as well as playing the Isle of Wight Festival in 2010.
ITV gave the band a showcase in 2014 with 'Spandau Ballet - True Gold' on which they performed their hits and were interviewed by Christine Bleakley.
They made their first appearance on US TV in 19 years, performing 'True' on ABC's 'Jimmy Kimmel Live'.
After releasing a Greatest Hits and touring, fans were, however, shocked when it was announced Tony Hadley and Spandau Ballet had parted ways.
While they limped on with Ross William Wild replacing Hadley, by 2019 Gary and Martin Kemp were both of the view that there was no point continuing until the original lead singer returned.
Hadley has hinted in several interviews that not all things were rosy in the band when he quit in 2017 and he has gone on to tour with his own group, ruling out any reunion due to particular tensions with the Kemps.
It is against this backdrop that Gary and Martin have decided to send up rockumentaries with a BBC2 spoof, 'The Kemps - All True'.
Written and directed by the comedian and actor Rhys Thomas of CBBC's 'Dodger' fame, it casts both brothers as 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' style exaggerated versions of themselves, poking fun at celebrity vanity and insecurity.
Thomas has assembled some decent cameos from the likes of Daniel Mays, Christopher Eccleston, Anna Maxwell Martin, Simon Day of 'The Fast Show,' Guy Ritchie favourite Alan Ford, Michael Kitchen, Tony Way and Martin's wife Shirlie.
Fronted by Thomas as a sloppy interviewer and director, it parodies rockumentary conventions like following Gary and Martin on a nostalgic trip to the house they were raised in, assorted vanity projects and the duo's efforts to cash in on the 40th anniversary of Spandau Ballet's formation with an album of stars covering their hits.
Positioning himself as a vegan eco champion, Gary promotes with his fictional wife, Anna Maxwell Martin's Lorna a meat free substitute product called Wonge which is supposedly derived from a fungus.
Their venture, however, turns out to be anything but meat free and they end up facing a grilling on BBC Radio 4's 'Today' programme by Nick Robinson.
Martin, meanwhile, is attempting to crowdfund a British hardman gangster equivalent of the Marvel Avengers franchise, with him and his brother reprising their roles as The Krays, Christopher Eccleston as John McVicar, Daniel Mays as Dick Turpin and Shirlie also taking part as Jacqui The Ripper in a read through for investors.
An appearance on BBC1's 'Who Do You Think You Are?' reveals a cousin, Perry Benson's Ross Kemp (not that one) is actually a brother who is keen to get them to invest in a cryptocurrency called Bitbob.
Sia and Rag n'Bone Man - not the real people but actors portraying them - are recruited to sing on the 40th anniversary tribute album.
However they only want to record 'True' which has already been promised to Little Mix who the Kemps fear will unleash retribution if they don't get to sing the classic song.
Gary portrays himself as the pretentious and insanely competitive sibling.
Martin is content to play the more famous, misguided fool.
All of this self deprecation is admirable.
However 'The Kemps: All True' never really has the comic bite you feel it should.
While Thomas in interviews to promote the spoof has talked about 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' being the show they are trying to emulate, in the same breath he also told The Evening Standard that they did not want to venture into the territory of Ricky Gervais 'Extras' too much where it gets too offensive.
And that's part of its problem because most of the time you feel Thomas and the Kemps are playing it a bit too safe and are veering too much into dad joke territory.
Where it occasionally does let loose, the humour really lands like a spoof of the Children's Film Foundation movies, with the writers imagining what would happen if one was made by Ken Russell.
A sequence about Gary dabbling in portrait art in which he proudly displays a painting of Ron Wood of The Rolling Stones has a particularly good pay off gag about Spandau Ballet.
However these are rare departures from their comedy rubber ring.
Even if the standard they have set themselves is 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' the reason that show works is that Larry David and his cast aren't afraid to make bad taste jokes often at their own expense.
Another problem for The Kemps is the mockumentary has been mined so well in the past by Eric Idle, Gary Weis and Neil Innes with 'The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash' and Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean with 'This Is Spinal Tap'.
To come anywhere those two films you really need to be landing your jokes and not reverting to corny humour all the time.
Finally, the biggest problem for 'The Kemps: All True' is comparisons are inevitable to another rockumentary about real life siblings from 2018 'Bros: After The Screaming Stops'.
Joe Pearlman and David Soutar's documentary about Matt and Luke Goss's attempt to put their differences behind them and stage a Bros comeback was unintentionally funny with lines worthy of Ricky Gervais' David Brent.
It became instant cult viewing and while Thomas has said it surfaced while their Spandau spoof was in gestation, it oddly casts a spectre over their comedy.
As well intentioned as 'The Kemps: All True' is, there's more laughs to be had in 'After The Screaming Stops'.
That tells you everything you need to know about the limitations of playing it safe.
('The Kemps: All True' was broadcast on BBC2 on July 5, 2020)
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