Louis Theroux wasn’t always this cuddly. Time was that public figures would agree to be followed around by his camera crew and come out of it looking like a bit of a tit. Think of his early-Noughties When Louis Met..., full of compellingly eccentric encounters with Ann Widdecombe, Neil and Christine Hamilton and Chris Eubank. But cultural mores have changed: we don’t like being mean, and Theroux is now a meme. And if his money don’t jiggle jiggle, neither does the opener to his new BBC Two series Louis Theroux Interviews..., which is a surprisingly flat and unengaging portrait of Stormzy, one of the UK’s most celebrated performers. Let’s hope later episodes, with the likes of Dame Judi Dench and Rita Ora, have more to offer.
“I’ve wanted to meet you for so long!” says Stormzy – real name Michael Omari – when Theroux turns up backstage at his tour. “Yeah, me too,” he purrs back. Theroux offers a “little hug”; the UK rap king suggests a “big hug”. Theroux’s lockdown podcast, Grounded, featured guests as various as Rylan, FKA twigs and KSI, and indicated that stars see a Theroux interview as a kind of status symbol, a Desert Island Discs-like signifier of their cultural worth or intellectual depth. Louis Theroux Interviews... is laced with the same mutual hunger for validation.
