Sir Jimmy Savile OBE, now 73 years old, still tirelessly travels the country raising charity funds and being famous, even if the BBC had dispensed with his presentational skills. Louis Theroux has made a name as a presenter/maker of documentaries in which he seeks out people whose behaviour is not quite in line with convention. Sir Jimmy, never one to open up his inner life on camera, is right to be wary of the amiable but inquisitive Theroux, who seems to see borderline psychosis in every second 'fact' he elicits from his mischevious subject. Teetotal, he is scrupulous about keeping supplies of drink for guests; he is never without a supply of cigars, even smoking one whilst on his treadmill.
T.P.
Like Ruby Wax, Louis Theroux has made his name by making fun of Americans, infiltrating sundry American subcultures in order to satirise the thugs and gently send up the fools. And he has followed Wax again by in trying his hand at the kind of offbeat interview exemplified by her encounters with Sarah Ferguson and O.J Simpson - more intrusite, more irreverent and (in theory) more relevatory than your standard celebrity profile.
At 73, Jimmy Savile's motives for agreeing to Theroux dogging his footsteps seem to combine a craving for regular infusions of publicity with a former wrestler's relish for the challenge of grappling with a rising star ("the pirahna fish of all interviewers") he assumes is out to con and expose him. "You can ask me anything, then you will find out how tricky I am," he brags when they first meet at his penthouse flat in Leeds, taunting Theroux by chanting "he's on the ropes" whenever the questions dry up.
Over the ensuing few days, Savile remains wary and prickly, only talking unguardedly when alone with the film's director. But Theroux nonetheless assembles a detailed portrait of the former disc jockey's lifestyle, relying not on spoken admissions but on telling images - the empty fridge, the absent cooker, the wardrobe still full of his late mother's clothes - to evoke a man who "traded in a private life for 50 years in the public eye".
J.D.
Sir Jimmy Savile, OBE, doctor of law, Fellow of the Royal College of Radiology, friend to the Queen ("I would never grass on her"), papal knight commander of the order of St Gregory, one-time wrestler, former miner, full time celebrity, tireless charity campaigner and - according to last night's revelations - a man who travels with only one pair of underpants (which he washes by hand nightly), comes across as a deeply, deeply, odd man.
Sir Jimmy had agreed to let Louis Theroux, the son of travel writer Paul Theroux, live with him for a week, in a deal which i suspect both parties initailly thought of as mutually beneficial. Theroux has made a career of picking out society's ecentrics and misfits, and making fun of them. Savile, on the other hand, has made his career his life, foregoing everything, it seems, but the pursuit of his own celebrity.
But while I found Savile very peculiar in deed, I came away feeling a little sorry for him. I don't think he quite knew what he was letting himself in for by allowing Theroux to dissect his life. By the end of their time together they clearly hated each other. But it was Theroux who seemed the more perverse.
Perry Cleveland-Peck