Louis Theroux’s podcast reveals a master at work

I always want to know more about Louis Theroux, which is odd, since I’ve seen so much of him already. I’ve seen him hanging out with Nazis, auditioning for Broadway and undergoing liposuction. I’ve seen him chased by scientologists and given the runaround by Jimmy Savile. I’ve even seen him evading the insistent romantic advances of an American sex worker. Why am I still interested?

Perhaps it’s that his personality veers close to seeming like an act. The otterish earnestness, the jerky, mannequin physicality. The spectacles that feel like a prop. There is something in me that wants to lift the lid on the real Louis Theroux, to sweep the curtain aside with a flourish and say: ‘This is how he gets them to say what he wants!’ There is another part of me that would quite like to go for a drink with him.

It means that I can’t help projecting myself on to whoever he is interviewing, and end up feeling both flattered and perturbed by the clear but relentless attention beaming through those glasses. It happened again listening to Grounded with Louis Theroux, a new series of interviews conducted remotely during the three months we were all stuck indoors.

The subject list is strange: Boy George, Chris O’Dowd, someone called KSI. Why these people in particular? As it turns out, because many of them had turned down being interviewed by him before. They didn’t want to be looked at by Louis. I can easily see why you wouldn’t want to open yourself up to an interviewer who, as this series demonstrates, still leaves most of his field trailing in the gutter.

The standout hour is with Lenny Henry, who speaks sensitively about how his mother would hit him — once with a frying pan — leaving bruises and welts.