Arts: Shooting fish in a barrel Louis Theroux is
the latest television presenter to achieve success by poking fun at Johnny
Foreigner. In his second series of Weird Weekends he returns to American
oddballs. But is the interviewer any less strange than his
subjects?
In his first series of Weird Weekends, Louis Theroux met
the crazed of America on their own terms. The gangling youngest son of travel
writer Paul Theroux nodded earnestly as Thor Templar totted up the number of
aliens he'd slain in defence of the earth (10) and a racist, homophobic Aryan
Nations militia-man revealed his weakness for the '70s sitcom, Are You Being
Served. As he had started with the satirist Michael Moore on TV Nation, so
Theroux continued in Weird Weekends, politely standing to one side while the
arrogant and the bigoted built petards by which to hoist themselves. Much like
Jon Ronson, his closest broadcasting cousin, Theroux (back tomorrow with Weird
Weekends for a second series) may bring the downright nutty to our screens in
the name of factual enquiry. But where does the documentary end and the cheap
laugh begin?
Theroux's boyish fascination with all things bonkers
appears genuine enough. Throughout our meeting, he thrusts mementoes of his
travels at me: scrawled manifestoes detailing the very real threat of alien
invasion, a Y2K survival guide and the Win Gym, the brainchild of the new
series's first star, Dr Win Paris. "It's a `global fitness revolution' - that's
what Win Paris says. No actually, it's a bicycle pump that bends in the middle,"
Theroux points out to me.
The new series appears to have retreated from
the wildest frontiers of weird explored in the first. Occupational rather than
inherent strangeness is the theme this time round, claims Theroux: infomercials,
demolition derbys, swinging and the like.
"The weird thing about the
swingers in the States is how conservative they are, how republican-voting. The
music's on very quietly; everyone brings a food dish. It's like a Conservative
Sunday barbecue, except everyone's stripped off and there's hardcore pornography
playing on the TV."
Now that he's moved on to the part-time crazies,
won't he find it harder than ever to dismiss the claim that he's tormenting
harmless eccentrics merely for his and our enjoyment? Theroux admits that though
he personally doesn't like making idiots out of the general public, he finds
that style of comedy very funny.
"But the reason I don't think I do it
is that these are vulnerable, sensitive people who've chosen for one reason or
another to be in the margins. And the last thing they need is for someone to
come from the mainstream and humiliate them."
Lest you think that
Theroux is merely rejigging Mysteries with Carol Vorderman for a BBC2 audience,
tune in to the first show to catch his encounter with Dr Win Paris. His
apartment walls daubed with idiosyncratic business maxims ("Fitnotize the
World", "Have a Super Exciting Goal"), the ageing, self-styled guru declares he
has the potential to be bigger than Bill Gates. Theroux is open-mouthed with
both shock and admiration. It a priceless scene, neither cruel nor deferential.
Endearingly, Theroux seems at a loss when it comes to defining Weird
Weekends at its best. It's documentary in one comment, comedy in the next; a
celebration of difference and then a character study. Theroux's screen persona
is another point of contention among his critics. Surely no one is that earnest,
that unflappable? In person, he's far sharper but no less engaging, which isn't
to say he hasn't capitalised on his innate ability to put his subjects off their
guard. "It's pretty much who I am," Theroux insists. "Which is slightly
depressing to me because I'd like to think that when this gets old, I'll do a
David Bowie and develop a new character." To what extent, if any, Theroux's
ingenuousness is a put-up is hard to say.
For our hour in his BBC
office, he's attentiveness itself, proffering tea, biscuits, videos, photocopies
and fretting about the well-being of his past contributors ("Anne thinks God
wrote her a letter telling her to meet a man called Padilla. Randy James is
having operations which freaks me out").
In answer to those who wonder
how much responsibility he really feels for the likes of Thor Templar and Dr
Paris, Theroux recounts an experience he had after the last series. "I sent one
of the neo-Nazis - the one who said he liked Are You Being Served? - copies of
all the shows just as a prank. He absolutely hated them. But he made a
reasonably cogent critique of the ethics of the programme that actually left me
feeling a bit wounded. I was like, `But he is a neo- Nazi... keep it in
perspective.' " In one small but significant way, Theroux does signal his
fidelity to his subjects: he never looks at the camera. Just as he rarely
prompts those he films to exaggerate their eccentricity, so Theroux bucks that
ugliest of contemporary broadcasting trends and refuses to cast conspiratorial
glances at his audience.
"It's not a decision, it just doesn't feel
comfortable. It feels like quite an intimate space when I'm with the person. I'm
aware of the camera but how can you be aware of however many million people are
watching? That'd be like looking into the abyss." And however silly his subjects
appear, Theroux somehow makes it up to them by making himself look as
ridiculous. It's an affecting revival of that old-fashioned British archetype,
the good sport, and one which he took to an extreme in the first series when he
stripped off alongside one of his contributors to audition for a porn film.
Theroux readily confesses he doesn't get it right all the time, though.
Weird Christmas, in which he invited four very disparate subjects from
the first series to spend Christmas with him, he candidly judges a failure.
"Weird Christmas is tough to justify morally. I'm not sure if I'd do
that again. I can't figure out if I'm being horrible or not, which probably
means I am." Next up is Israel for Millennium eve which Theroux reckons will be
overrun with apocalypse loons. There's also a trip to North Korea in the offing
he says, telling a story about a satellite the North Koreans apparently launched
to play revolutionary songs in space. "How weird is that!" But do you abandon
your Weird Weekends friends, as he calls them?
"Oh, I stay in touch. I
wouldn't say every week, but every couple of months. Like one guy, Mike Oehler.
Y2K has vindicated the last 25 years of his existence. On the phone, he was
like, `Louis, if you do nothing else, get out of the city on January 1st.' I
said, `You really think it's going to be that bad?' `Minimum: global depression
And it could be the collapse of civilization.' Which I thought was quite nice."
`Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends' starts tomorrow at 9.30pm