Louis Theroux

As we all know, Christmas was originally established so that shops could sell more things.  This is back when there were shops, though.  Historical times when there was an economy and EU membership.  By calling their wares presents and saying everyone had to give something to all the people they knew, once-mighty shops vacuumed up our cash (also consigned to the past, thankfully, which will make switching to the euro easier when we re-join the EU) while we skipped home with unnecessary trinkets to wrap, hide under tree branches, and then distribute to relatives before a turkey dinner and some TV, or an argument.  This traditional meaning has of course been forgotten now, partly because things were better in the olden days (especially WWII), but also because there’s a new meaning in town: the birth of baby Jesus.  Even though his mum was a virgin, this infant founded a religion that millions follow to this very day.  Some of my favourite followers are the members of the Westboro Baptist Church.  What this waffle means to say is that I always think of them at Christmas (even though they dismiss the festival as being too paganistic).  So, while holed up at my parents’, a tier 4 refugee airlifted out of London lest I miss any of the above rejoicing, I cracked out my laptop, logged onto the BBC iPlayer, and reminded myself of the documentaries Louis Theroux had made about them.

For those slow on the uptake, let me just confirm that Louis Theroux is the boxset we’ll be discussing in this week’s blog.  And those quick on the uptake will be pointing out to me that he is in fact a man rather than a boxset.  While his programmes over the years have taken such monikers as Altered States or When Louis Met, the editors and I (actually just me) have decided to treat his whole oeuvre as one boxset here.  The fact is: it’s my blog and I can make up whatever rules I want.  But, more importantly, this really is the best way to tackle a career coming up for thirty years of quality output.

We’ll start with his Weird Weekends, first broadcast when I was a wee lad of twelve and already watching things I shouldn’t have been.  Young Louis himself is a bit of a gangly smirker, embedding himself in fringe communities focused on either extreme views or extreme ways of life or some combination of both.  What unites all he comes across is their unshakeable conviction that they have found the ultimate life hack.  Whether a career making money in porn, or navigating marriage up-spicing with swinging parties, his subjects wax lyrical about the benefits of their lifestyle choices.  What helps matters is that most of his weird weekenders are Americans (from that wild land that, to British people, is where telly comes from) all too eager to show off their certainty.  Unto them, however, Louis casts no judgment.  While the whites of his eyes might betray some consternation, his questioning simply offers a length of rope by which they all ultimately unravel themselves.  Instead of jumping in once they have finished speaking, Louis pauses.  His garrulous new pals can’t help but fill the gap, eventually talking themselves almost out of their own flag-waving beliefs.  It’s glorious content you can find on Netflix and, even though it looks like it was filmed on tracing paper when compared to their modern gloss, it’s still utterly compelling.

We then move into When Louis Met territory, a small number of episodes that get under the skin of a variety of prominent Brits who can only really be described as naff.  Some are treasures like Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee or Chris Eubank, and others pose more sinister figures, like Anne Widdecombe and Max Clifford.  Most notorious of all is telly paedo Jimmy Savile and you can’t help but imagine a kiddie porn dungeon behind every unopened door in his home.  For me, though, a highlight is the haranguing of the Hamiltons, as Christine’s self-care wine servings offer great lubrication to the antics that abound.

Both the above have occasionally been reviewed as exploitative and, as a viewer, you can’t help but recoil at others embarrassing themselves.  That said, participation is clearly voluntary, and we must each earn our fifteen minutes of fame as best we can.  Look at me: writing the 180^th entry in an unpopular blog.

Between 2003 and the present day, Louis sporadically treats us to one of his BBC Two specials.  More global in subject matter (though still always best in the USA), broader themes are investigated, but still in characteristically extreme circumstances.  Law and (dis)order figure heavily, with the mind-blowing double on the Miami Mega Jail haunting my memory.  Linked to this are explorations of addictive behaviour.  The City Addicted To Crystal Meth remains truly shocking, with Theroux’s calm presence drawing out gasp-inducing frankness from addicts.  His same style in Talking To Anorexia similarly sees him hide his own discomfort in order to provide fragile girls with a platform through which to process their irreconcilable behaviour.  Tragedy looms large and Theroux will return to subjects to track their progress only to find that things haven’t turned out as planned, Twilight Of The Porn Stars being a particular example.

I would also commend our man’s bravery.  In America’s Most Dangerous Pets, he unearths a pre-Tiger King Joe Exotic and remains calm in the face of some harrowing animal encounters.  But 2007’s visit to The Most Hated Family In America stands out as the best example of Theroux’s willingness to stick his head in the lion’s mouth.  We’re back the Westboro Baptist Church of my introduction, a bible-inspired hate group who achieved notoriety by picketing the funerals of dead soldiers with offensive (and poorly illustrated) signs blaming all of America’s problems on sodomy.  Louis is hosted by the charismatic Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of the church’s founder and committed member, happy to shout down his ludicrous questions about whether she has to be so nasty to everyone.  With Theroux, we stand by while she runs her household of eleven kids with maternal tenderness, making sure they are clear about who will burn in eternal hellfire (everybody else) and who won’t (them and them alone).

In 2011, Louis returns to the Phelps in America’s Most Hated Family In Crisis, quizzing them about departed members who have come to reject the group’s ministry but also noticing that their infamy has attracted new converts.  This brings me to the highlight of this year’s festive period for me: uncovering a third documentary in this series.  Surviving America’s Most Hated Family interviews, among others, Shirley’s own estranged daughter, Megan Phelps-Roper.  In earlier documentaries, she embodies the unwavering conviction that characterises Theroux’s subjects.  To see such a sensible young lady calmly spout vitriol offers an insight into human potential that scripted drama often fails to approximate.  But, as she details in her book that I happened to be reading at the same time, Unfollow, she began to uncover inconsistencies in the doctrine the church promoted.  The arguments on Twitter that had so thrilled her started to persuade her.  Now, here she is, talking to Louis Theroux and the whole world about treating fellow humans with compassion and kindness, rather than shouting at them while they bury their dead, holding aloft illustrations of stickmen penetrating each other.

Conversely, Louis of later years does start to take exception to his subjects’ beliefs, almost speeding up the process whereby they formally unravelled themselves independently and prodding them more impatiently to agree that, yes, they’re being a bit silly and should probably stop it.  A father in his fifties, should we worry that Theroux is becoming the more conservative older gent so many of us are sadly destined to turn into?  Probably not, as he does concede where convinced, and he ultimately comes from a place of compassion and understanding.  There appears a genuine worry for the wellbeing of those involved.  In my eyes, he can do no wrong.  I’ve devoured his compelling podcast series, Grounded, and am fairly certain we will one day be the best of pals.  And with that, he enters into the folklore of Just One More Episode, alongside 179 of my most important boxsets.

Fleabag

It seems I’ve been going around handing out national treasure status to people willy nilly.  So let’s just recap those who have been adorned with this accolade so far on Just One More Episode.  I’m pretty sure I would have said this about Julia Davis for her work in Nighty Night (and Gavin & Stacey), plus there’s Michaela Coel from Chewing Gum.  Surely there were others, but I’m not about to read through eighty-something blogposts to check.  And it doesn’t even matter, anyway, as we are today adding another name to the list.  Step forward and wink at us cheekily, Phoebe Waller-Bridge.  There are three reasons she could be here.  The first is Killing Eve, but I haven’t actually watched that yet, as I kind of find assassins a bit unappealing (it’s a meh career, like being a surveyor) and, although it’s trapped in my iPhone on the iPlayer app (ha – two things starting with a little i) I just haven’t got around to it.  She also did Crashing, but I haven’t seen that either…  No, this week, we are doing Fleabag.

We’ll skip over my viewing’s genesis here (a friend literally asked if anyone had seen it, and I immediately died inside because I hadn’t), and get straight into why it’s great.  Fleabag is unflinchingly honest.  The opening scenes of episode one, series one revolve around our (anti-)heroine, Fleabag, actually called Kate, as she receives what is essentially a booty call.  She bends over backwards to accommodate her gentleman caller, rushing to get her body ready for his standards before finally opening the door and putting just as much trouble into pretending the whole preparation performance was no trouble at all.  I was floored by the honesty.  It felt ballsy and painful, laying bare the fact that, even in 2016, women were still busting a gut to perpetuate the myths men expect of them.  The issue was treated with even more transparency, thanks to Waller-Bridge’s pieces to camera.  That’s right, just like Miranda’s end-of-pier winks, Fleabag breaks the fourth wall and interacts directly with the viewer.  We are let in on her secrets, which in turn boosts her universality through intimacy and proximity.

But why is Kate called Fleabag?  It seems to be a mixture of her lack of self-esteem and her conviction that she probably isn’t a good person.  I don’t know about you, but I sometimes look at myself and conclude that I am a bit of a shit.  The other week, when returning from dinner with friends, a large man had collapsed in the street.  Some Chinese tourists seemed to be on the case with wrestling his gargantuan frame from the concrete and A&E was just around the corner.  My friends were desperate to stop and help, but I refused to break my stride (I wanted to go home and watch Netflix).  My pals were appalled at my assertions that it was probably the man’s own fault, the Chinese seemed to be coping and, as mentioned, A&E was just around the corner.  Well, like me, and like all of us, Fleabag seems to end up doing bad things.  The first series gradually reveals in flashback the poor choices she has made, costing her dearly and leading to her current predicament.

There’s laugh-out-loud comedy, driven by the awful characters that constitute her family.  But, because of the above, this is only ever a knife edge from being sliced into desperate sadness.  The show’s origins as a one-woman show blow my mind – what could have been packed into those ten minutes which Waller-Bridge first produced after a friend challenged her?  And now look!  She’s a few months younger than me but has achieved about 15 times as much.  Why haven’t my friends been challenging me?  Although, I suppose they challenged me to help that fallen man and I just ignored them.  But yes, it seems the one-woman show is a rich environment for narrative brilliance.  If you’ve never seen Luisa Omielan, please do so immediately.  Or Google Tiannah Viechweg’s Carnival Queen and get gut-punched by its strength.  I’ll wait.

Fleabag, though, is an ensemble.  Sian Clifford’s performance as her older sister, Claire, rings frighteningly true.  I’m reminded of so many people who confuse happiness with success and who conflate ambition with humanity.  Claire’s expressions are electric and her conflicts with Fleabag mirror the worst parts of sisterly relations in a way never seen before.  Meanwhile, having far too much fun as the self-centred godmother-cum-future stepmother is Olivia Colman.  I’m not sure why she’s only cropping up now and wasn’t in my initial list of national treasures (see her work in Peep Show and watch out for her coming to The Crown).  Sure, she’s got an Oscar now in her downstairs cloak, but she still knows where the good writing is (I mean, in the programme, Fleabag, right; not necessarily in this sentence of this blogpost…)

Series two has just begun (praise be) and I managed to catch its first episode on my phone while flying from Innsbruck to Gatwick.  Despite the lack of sleep on a boozy work ski jolly, despite the appalling Samsung J5 headphones I am forced to use, despite the tiny iPhone screen and despite wanting to be anywhere but on an economy flight, I’m going to bandy around words like masterpiece and genius.  We open on a family dinner, with most characters as yet unreconciled from the fallout of the previous season’s climax, some months ago.  Throughout the thirty minutes, we barely leave the restaurant, the claustrophobia and tension increasing with every additional pouring of wine (by the very enthusiastic waitress, with Waller-Bridge making even an incidental character hilarious, and tragic).  The sisters end up confronting each other in the loos; a bombshell is dropped and handled with such brutality that my gasping could be heard three rows back.

So, here’s me, staggered someone can produce such telly with such consistency.  This is the bleakest black humour, with raw truths I can barely handle, yet jam-packed with LOLs, cheekiness and bad human behaviour.  Phoebe Waller-Bridge, welcome to the hall of national treasures.