The Romanians Are Coming was the immigration story from the other side. Bustling along with the wry, sometimes desperate comedy (and themed music) of a Balkan film, its characters said things about themselves that others would hardly get away with. “I’m going to tell you the stories of some of the arseholes like me who came to take your jobs,” said narrator Alex Fechete Petru at the beginning of James Bluemel’s revealing three-parter. It showed both the lives of three hapless characters as they sought work, or just survival, in the UK, and their homes in the desolate location of Baia More back in Romania whence they hailed.
For the briefest moment I wondered if Channel 4 was pulling a fast one on us, and this was a spoof. Its opening laconic meditation was that while America may be getting ready to go to Mars, Romania was still using the horse: judging by how things looked back there, you might have thought the arrival of horsepower was only a recent development. Work opportunties, scrap metal, and if you don’t find any, no supper; recreational activities, glue-sniffing. Gypsy Alex was explaining his pride in being a gypsy, insisting “even the little dog is gypsy”. But no, this was the often grim reality of precarious lives: the word “shit” cropped up a lot. Shit jobs, shitty teeth for fixing on the NHS, scaring the shit out of us.
The idea of state healthcare didn’t seem familiar either, given its effective absence back home
We’re due to learn more about Petru’s own story in the next episode apparently, and for now he showed us those of three of his fellow countrymen – Alex (another one, who’d come from Canada), Sandu and Stepan. Recognising a fellow countryman is easy apparently, as they played a game of “Spot the Romanian” around Victoria bus station, which was home, on the floor of what seemed to be an often empty car park (Alex in situ, pictured below right), temporary shelter that was at least better than camping out (“if it rains, we’re fucked”). It was the details that were telling. You could get free internet in the bus station, but only for the minutes or so when a Megabus was on the stand. A job agency wouldn’t give you a chance unless you offered a fixed address: that must have involved a degree of fibbing, and you ended up cleaning the same streets as you’d been sleeping on.
We did wonder what preconceptions might have brought them over here. Hapless Sandu was just never going to make it with his English (lack thereof). “Do you want delivery or work inside?” he was asked at Liverpool fried chicken joint, but didn’t notice that he was being offered a choice. He did seem delighted by a Liverpool shopping centre, though. He was back home by the closing titles.
Stefan had applied for job seeker’s allowance. For the time being he was trying his luck on the employment front as a Charlie Chaplin impersonator/statue – one of seven Romanians around doing that act in London, apparently. Let’s just say he didn’t seem a natural, and takings weren’t great. When his benefit did come through he was delighted, even if when director Bluemel asked where he thought it came from, he didn’t have much of a clue. “From the EU?” he hazarded. Then it was off to the dentist. The idea of state healthcare didn’t seem familiar either, given its effective absence back home: Stefan’s main motivation was to get together money to fix his daughter’s leg after a doctor had botched an operation, or better still bring her and the rest of his family over to the UK.
These are not outcomes that are going to go down well in some quarters, though perversely the two sides may find some common ground. “When I see beggars on your streets I’m ashamed to be a gypsy,” Alex said, “and, though I hate UKIP and Mr Nigel, I agree that they should be sent home.” Narrator Alex told us that only one tenth of the 25,000 or so Romanians who had arrived since the beginning of 2014 were on benefits. We’ll see how that dialogue develops over the next couple of weeks. Taking so frequently comic an approach to a subject that doesn’t usually get covered in exactly that light, The Romanians Are Coming looks like it’s going to surprise us.