The evolution of Louis Theroux as a documentary maker has been fascinating to observe. Back in the 1990s, he specialised in knowing winks to camera, deploying a mixture of charm and carefully calibrated haplessness to gain the confidence of his subjects. Usually, these weren’t particularly serious people – but even if they were, he tended to undermine them by accentuating their absurdity. White supremacists, for example, or Christian nationalists, weren’t seen as much more than fodder for mockery back then.
So much for those innocent, flippant times: Theroux is older and wiser and, in any case, has been hunting for bigger game for some years now. He first visited Israeli settlers in the Palestinian West Bank back in 2011. Even then, it wasn’t a situation that invited levity in any way.
