THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.150 - LOUIS THEROUX LIVE AT THE ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL 2019

Episode Date: February 28, 2021

Adam talks with journalist, documentary presenter, podcaster and school friend, Louis Theroux.This is an edited version of a conversation that took place in front of a live audience at London's Royal Festival Hall on 25th September, 2019.I was there to interview Louis about his book, Gotta Get Theroux This, and as well as serious subjects like eating disorders and the abuses perpetrated by Michael Jackson, we covered lighter topics like the strange rumours about Louis circulated by the late sinister PR guru Max Clifford.We also covered Theroux memes, Theroux tattoos, the secrets of Theroux's interviewing technique, and my concerns with how Louis described the teenage me in his book.Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and Emma Corsham for conversation editingThanks also to the Royal Festival Hall events team for letting me use this edited version of the recording here.Podcast artwork by Helen GreenRELATED LINKSADAM BUXTON'S BLOGRAMBLE BOOK  by ADAM BUXTON - 2020 (AUDIOBOOK AT APPLE)RAMBLE BOOK by ADAM BUXTON - 2020 (AUDIOBOOK AT AUDIBLE)GOTTA GET THEROUX THIS by LOUIS THEROUX - 2019 (WATERSTONES)LOUIS THEROUX - GROUNDED PODCASTLOUIS REACTS TO TATTOOS OF HIMSELF - 2018 (YOUTUBE)LOUIS ON THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST EP.121 - MAY 2020LOUIS ON THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST EP.100 - JULY 2019LOUIS ON THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST EP.81 - OCTOBER 2018LOUIS ON THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST EP.49 - SEPTEMBER 2017LOUIS ON THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST EP.29 - SEPTEMBER 2016LOUIS ON THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST EP.10 - NOVEMBER 2015LOUIS ON THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST EP.1 - SEPTEMBER 2015OTHER RELATED LINKSLEAVING NEVERLAND - MICHAEL JACKSON ABUSE DOCUMENTARY - 2019 (YOUTUBE)ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL WEBSITECHIRP-O-MATIC (EUROPE) BIRD SONG IDENTIFYING APP (ON APPLE APP STORE) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how are you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here.

Taking a beautiful breath of fresh air there on the very last evening of February 2021. And what an evening it is. I am surveying the countryside from a nice high vantage point. OK, so Norfolk's known for being fairly flat, but actually around us there's a few hills. And I'm on top of one of them now as the sun goes down. And look, I'm not trying to rub it in your face or anything, but it is really nice. Golden hour out here in the countryside.

We've still got a lot of autumn browns in the trees and across the fields. But work on spring is definitely happening. And the greens are getting very lush. I downloaded an app the other day to help me identify birds by their calls. I googled Shazam for bird song. Turns out there's quite a few, which is the one I got. I downloaded one called Chirpomatic. This is not a sponsor thing, by the way. It was one I had to pay for. It wasn't free. It was $3.9999 let's test it right now so what you do is you record a bit of the

bird noise you want to identify and then it analyzes it for you so let's give it an easy one recording recording complete and it's got it almost certainly rook corvus frugilegus look at your frugilegs over to the west where the sun is sinking in the very blue sky is doggus loggus and i'm glad to say that she has been improving throughout the week. When I spoke to you last week she was just back from the vet having spent a week not eating, getting very weak and lethargic. I was worried about her. Anyway she is doing a lot better and actually this week really seems to have turned a corner and returned to something like her regular bouncy tiggerish self which she really wasn't for for a few weeks it was quite

alarming rosie come here hello sweet dog you don't really talk much anymore do you rose i don't really talk much anymore, do you, Rose? I don't see the need to make idle chit-chat for no reason. Boy, that's my whole bread and butter. She's off. OK, let me tell you a little bit about podcast number 150. It is a golden nugget from the unreleased podcast Vaults, though not from an especially dusty shelf. from the unreleased podcast vaults, though not from an especially dusty shelf.

Podcast 150 features a conversation with journalist, documentary presenter, podcaster and school friend Louis Theroux. It took place at the Royal Festival Hall on London's South Bank in front of a live audience of around 2,200 people. None of them social distancing, none of them wearing masks, just breathing and coughing all over each other without a care in the world.

OK, so it was September 2019, but still, they should have known better. I was there to interview Louis about his book, Gotta Get Through This, and as well as serious subjects like eating disorders and the abuses perpetrated by Michael Jackson, we covered lighter topics like the strange rumours about Louis circulated by the late sinister PR guru Max Clifford when he was the subject of one of Louis' documentaries circulated by the late sinister PR guru Max Clifford,

when he was the subject of one of Louis' documentaries, and took against him. We also covered Theroux memes, Theroux tattoos, the secrets of Theroux's interviewing technique, and whether being described as ingratiating, as I was in Louis''s book was something that I should have been pleased about or not. It was a good night and a good conversation as I hope you will agree. Back at the end with a tiny waffle slice but right now with Louis Theroux. Here we go. Ramble Chat Let's have a Ramble Chat We'll focus first on this Then concentrate on that

Come on, let's tune the bat And have a Ramble Chat Put on your conversation coat And find your talking hat La, la, la, la, la, la La, la, la, la, la, la Please welcome to the stage Louis Theroux and Adam Buxton. Thank you. welcome to the stage Louis Theroux and Adam Buxton. Thank you.

Thank you for being here everyone. 2,200 people. Now Louis, your book is called Gotta Get Th Get Through This, which is a pun. There is another layer of meaning to it, though, isn't there? It's part of your weird meme universe. Which was what made me okay with it, which was that I thought, oh, well, I don't actually think this is funny. I'm putting it as the title of my book because it's not funny that's what

and I thought I'm recontextualizing for those who don't know there were t-shirts and greetings cards that were being sold and perhaps still are on the internet bearing the legend gotta get through this a reference to the much loved Daniel Bedingfield song

from the mid or late 90s. Do you remember that? I don't. How did that go? You don't? You seriously don't? Are you joking? Are you joking? I honestly don't. I don't love Daniel Bedingfield. I just don't.

Is anyone going to join me as I attempt to sing? It doesn't really have a... It's like, got to get through this. Is anyone going to join me as I attempt to sing? It doesn't really have a... It's like, gotta get through this. I gotta get through this. Gotta make it, gotta make it, gotta make it through. I gotta get through this. I gotta get through this. Anything.

Give me one more second and I make my time. I don't know the lyrics. Have you never heard that? It's coming back to you. I've never know the lyrics. Have you never heard that? It's coming back to you. I've never ever heard that. That's the whole pun. Yeah, so it's a reference to a largely forgotten 90s. I don't even know what the genre is.

Two-step. Two-step record. Oh. It's two-step, wasn't it? Two-step. Yeah. It was during the Craig David. Okay. Era. Yeah, wasn't it? Two-step. Yeah. It was during the Craig David era. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Re-rewind. The crowd say, Bo, select. That was the similar vintage. So that was what it hinged on, was a wordplay based on the song. I like it. But the world of Theroux memes, dank Theroux memes, is a strange one.

Do you feel as if you're being ironically appropriated? Presumably you are, though, aren't you? When people get a tattoo of your face on their leg, and mainly it looks like Harry Potter. But if you Google, I don't know, I'm sure all of you guys have Googled Louis Theroux tattoos, but if you never have done, do that. I've done it. There's a lot of hits. There's not like one or two.

There's hundreds of people who have decided to tattoo Louis' face. Some of them may be here tonight. Have you thought about that? Raise your hand if you have a tattoo of Louis? No. It seems strange when you think about it. You'd get a tattoo of someone but not bother to go and see them

during a live event because it seemed like too much of a commitment. Young people these days, though, I mean, they're pretty free and easy with their tattoos, not to suggest that they aren't really, really committed to you. So much of it revolves around social media that it's almost a clickbait phenomenon where you are likely to get thousands of likes

if you upload a picture of yourself on Instagram with a new facial tattoo. So it's sort of incentivizing extreme behavior, but in a positive way. What did this have to do with my book, which I'm promoting? Well, I was going to bring it around quite cleverly because you know your whole thing is chatting with people who are on the fringes and being open minded about various forms of you know niche or

fringe or marginal behaviour sometimes quite extreme behaviour and do you find though as a parent that you're able to be open minded when it comes to things that are affecting your children in that same way and does it make you less panicky i mean i'm 49 so i've definitely um become i think the technical definition is an old fart in terms of extreme

behavior i like i tend to think that it's so easy to get hung up on what appears from the outside to be a deviant lifestyle and fail to see the parts of it that are either ironic or playful or just based on some kind of skin-deep fashion. And if you educate your kids correctly, that you can be as I feel I was. My parents exposed me to all kinds of inappropriate material. Like what? Well, I talk in the book, when I was about eight or nine, my parents gave my brother a book, and I talk about this. It was called The Order of Assassins by Colin Wilson. And it was a description of, it was a kind of collection of the accounts of the lives and deeds of serial killers and described grisly murders.

And thereafter, my brother used to rejoice in telling me about a murderer called Jack the Stripper who would choke his victims. This is going to be interesting to see how this plays in a live audience because it's kind of funny on the page. And then in live it might not feel that funny. He would basically murder people with his penis. What was the technique?

You can't just say he murdered people with his penis and expect, okay, let's move on. How is that done? He would choke them. How long? A long paw, or how long was his penis? Obviously, how long is his penis? I don't know exactly the technical aspect of it.

The point is that when I was nine years old, my brother told me this and I was like, that's so weird. Like, what? How long is it? How long... How would you do that? But, look, I grew up to be a normal,

well-adjusted human being. I don't mind. Do you feel like you are? Serious question. Normal, well-adjusted. Have you had any midlife crisis-y? Well, I think having read the book, you'll know that I'm not that well-adjusted in certain respects.

that I'm not that well adjusted in certain respects. And one of the themes is, and this became clearer to me in the act of writing it, that I was and am, in many respects, a kind of stranger to myself. And I talk in the book about the ways in which I don't know some of the time what I'm feeling about certain things. And this only struck me as I went through the book,

realizing how many times I'd written, I wasn't sure what I felt about such a thing, or I didn't know whether I loved such a person. And so, yeah, I think in that respect I'm not that well adjusted, although I wonder if that isn't the case with quite a lot of people. And I also don't put that down to being told about a man choking women on his penis. I think it's unrelated. I stumbled across an article on the Radio Times website the other day,

which was analyzing some of your techniques as an interviewer. In this one, it's Jeff Beattie, a professor of psychology at Edge Hill University, specializing in cognition communication. And he says, top technique, bring your best poker face. That's something that you do apparently. The really interesting thing about Louis is that his face doesn't move that much. Even when he's talking, there's very little emotion on display. The problem with other interviewers is that their face will change and influence what their subject is saying when they talk about something revealing, but it doesn't happen with Theroux. There's very little non-verbal leakage. And he's mostly blank.

He's not giving away any look of disapproval. Even if he doesn't agree with what's being said, he's very controlled and lets his subjects talk without judgment. It's amazing. So is that something you're consciously doing? Are any of these things things that you're consciously doing and that you've learned from watching yourself maybe or been told? Short answer, no.

I will say that I don't enjoy interviewers who over-emote and the interview subject says something sad or reveals something intimate that might elicit an empathetic reaction. And then the interviewer does something like... Yeah. Yeah. yeah I'm not

or God forbid says oh bless and goes in for a hug I'm not as a viewer I want to experience it without being overly guided by the presenter or the interviewer

you want to leave them dangling. I do. And sometimes someone says something outrageous or strange about, oh, I've killed 10 space aliens, right, which Thor Templar, Lord Commander of the Earth Protectorate, told me during the UFOs episode of Weird Weekends. The only real reaction to that, to my mind, is just a sort of...

Louie nods without expression. Because what are you going to say like, no you didn't! You fucking liar! Stop it! Stop it! Stop! You're being ridiculous.

Stop out of it. And then if it's a sad moment, it's just let the moment speak for itself. Yeah, yeah. Tip number two. Stay in your personal bubble. Professor Karen Leary, head of film and television studies at the University

of Glasgow and an expert on screen performance, says we can all see that Theroux is often taller than his subjects, but he tends to slightly hunch a little. And he takes up very little space verbally, too. We've all seen his awkward silences. They're powerful social signals for the other person to compensate verbally and otherwise. It also makes people feel like they're not really being observed.

The silences, that did become a thing that was identifiably yours or was associated with you. You know, I think the silences, it's easy to overstate the importance of the silences. A silence is like a hole. It's meaningless without the earth around it. Oh, is that in the book? That's good, man. Have you, if you're being truthful, ever done it as a technique for unsettling the other person?

Because it can be very unsettling if someone... You said being honest as though the things I've been saying before weren't honest. Continuing to be honest. Yes, of course. Because sometimes I'm in an encounter with someone who I regard as deeply dubious or someone who might need some... Or, you know, I'm aware that that sense of embarrassment

or that sense of that heightened feeling that you get when someone isn't saying something may be required in order to, I guess, tantalize them into saying something or just showcase what it is that they are saying in a different way. More unsettling, it seems, for you was your time with Max Clifford. Well, with Max Clifford, it was that he took against me midway through filming because I he kept saying things to my director off the record

to do with a stage managed relationship that Simon Cowell his then client was supposedly in so Simon Cowell Max was arranging photo shoots with a dancer from the lap dancing club.

I should call it from the... What is the correct term? Because I don't think they had a lap dancer. Let's say from the exotic dancing club. Sexy club. Sexy club, the Spearmint Rhino. And the sexy club was also a client of Max's. It was also one of Max's promotional things.

Anyway, Max said to Alicia my director oh it's not a real relationship I'm just arranging it to feed the tabloid stories in order to keep them happy keep the right kind of stories in the tabloids keep the wrong stories out and manage Simon Cowell's profile kind of makes you wonder what stories he was keeping out, right? Either way, when I said to Max, as I said early on, on camera I said, you can't tell my director one thing and then expect me not to ask about it. Like, that's ridiculous.

I'm not agreeing to present some Max Clifford version of events. Like, if it's a fictitious relationship, then I'm going to call you on that. Anyway, he took against me after that and began feeding stories to the tabloids about me. What sort of thing? Just silly. Just silly. You're really silly, trivial, but oddly upsetting. Do you remember what it was? I remember one, that someone had interviewed you or met you at a party and you had bad breath. And do you know what?

I talk a lot about this in the book. I didn't put that in the book, the fact that he said that I had bad breath, because it really offended and upset me. Yeah. No one likes having bad breath. Well, hang on. No one likes people alleging. Alleging that they have bad breath.

No one likes being found out for not brushing their teeth. But it shook me up. And then the next time I interviewed him, I was chewing free dent or some kind of chewing gum because he had me worried about it. And then he leaked that as a follow-up story. And I was like, I can't win. First it's bad breath, now what, the breath's not bad enough? We're going to take

a question now. We've got someone down here. There's someone right here in front. They've paid the most for their tickets. It seems only reasonable. A mic is being brought over to you. What's your name? My name's Katie. I read your comments on leaving Neverland,

which I totally and utterly agree with, by the way. And I watched your documentary on trying to track down Michael Jackson at the time. A, what would you have asked him then? And B, what would you ask him now? Okay, great question. So my comments on leaving Neverland. Leaving Neverland was the documentary made by Dan Reed with the two victims of Michael Jackson. I have believed Michael Jackson was a paedophile for quite a while. I mean, it didn't take that documentary to persuade me of that. But I thought it was a kind of forensic

and utterly sort of granular examination of the grooming process. So that I sent out a tweet that said, if you don't believe that Michael Jackson's a pedophile, you are hiding, something along the lines, you're hiding yourself from the facts and colluding in the suppression of abuse. The question I would have asked Michael Jackson at the time, I think would have been, and this was a question I'd formulated to Michael Jackson at the time, I think would have been,

and this was a question I'd formulated to myself even at the time, like I'd thought about this a little bit, was along the lines of like, what do you consider the true definition of love? Something along those lines. In the sense that I genuinely think Michael Jackson imagined that he loved the children that he abused, which doesn't in any way make it any less horrible.

I think it goes a certain way towards explaining both why he made himself okay with it and why he was able to groom the victims and why the victims, in a sense, were susceptible to the abuse. Because they didn't at the time see it as abuse. They imagined themselves to be in a consenting relationship. And I think one of the striking things about Michael Jackson is he was telling us at the time exactly what his interests were. He didn't miss an opportunity in interviews to normalize inappropriate relationships with children.

You know, with his Diane Sawyer interview, his Oprah Winfrey interview, he was always saying, I want to, with his Martin Bashir interview, it was always about sharing the bed with children. He would say it wasn't sexual, but in a sense, I think in his mind, he was saying that, well, it's not just sexual, it's more romantic. What I would ask him now, I don't know, I guess it's all in plain sight now. You would just say what part of you imagined

that it might be okay to have sexual relations with a child? Did you ever think that there was a possibility you might get access and actually interview him face to face? There was a time when early on I was planning it and I had an in with a guy who was paying Michael Jackson a lot of money. He was a mysterious Asian businessman who was a friend of a friend.

And he was paying a lot of money to promote something called the Michael Jackson mystery drink. Do you remember it? No. It was a, I know. The mystery drink. Kind of makes you wonder what was in it. It was an energy drink called the Michael Jackson mystery drink. That's not a, I mean, the whole concept of a mystery drink is bad. It didn't take off. It didn't take off. This all needs to be fact-checked. This is to the best of't take off. It didn't take off. This all needs to be fact checked.

This is to the best of my recollection. He was licensing it and then he paid him a lot of money and I was sitting with this guy and I pitched him. I was like, you know, I'd like to make a documentary. He called Michael Jackson while I was there and said, Michael, I'm sitting here with a guy from the BBC.

What's that? Oh, water balloons. Yeah, fun. Okay. Yeah, yeah, I love water balloons. Yeah. Oh, yeah, having fun. Okay.

Yeah, I'm with a guy from the BBC. Yeah, I'll be quick. He wants to make a documentary with you. Oh. Okay. Yeah, okay, you have fun. Bye. And that was it. And he said, and then I said, like, it's kind of weird, like, knowing that, because first of all, the scene you're imagining is Michael with one of his play friends or victims running around Neverland chucking water balloons. But the other part is like, and then he says like,

yeah, Michael said that he's getting requests for documentaries all the time. So maybe he's not so interested. And that was as close as I got. Right. What you did get in the end, though, was interviews with his father, Joe. And in the end, that sort of shed some unsettling light on Michael

and how he turned out to be the person that he was. I was thinking that maybe you could read a little section of that. I would love to. Okay, cool. So this is a reading from the book. This is a reading from the book. I love it when it comes back to the book. Took two years to write.

Louis Theroux walks over to the lectern, carrying his book. Okay, this is an excerpt from a chapter of Gotta Get Theroux This, by Louis Theroux. And it comes at the end of a period when I was making celebrity profiles and then I sort of ran out of road

with the celebrity profiles and so I entered a phase of work that I refer to as when Louis didn't meet and one of the people I didn't meet was Michael Jackson but I did pay £5,000 or rather the production paid £5,000 for an interview with Joe Jackson

Michael Jackson's famously abusive physically abusive or rather the production paid £5,000 for an interview with Joe Jackson, Michael Jackson's famously physically abusive father and the manager of the Jacksons with whom Michael Jackson had had a difficult relationship. Michael used to say that he would regurgitate whenever he knew that he had to face his father. Anyway, we're in a hotel room in New Jersey, and this joins the story midway through the conversation late we're in a hotel room in New Jersey, and this joins the story midway through the conversation, late at night in a hotel room. I talked about Michael's bizarre qualities, his apparent inability to relate to people his own age, his friendships with children. I said he seemed in need of help. Joe batted all of this away with languid disdain I will get up and walk if I have to talk about Michael's nose on the BBC

he said because he wouldn't like that then he said Michael is sort of like a kid himself he never really grown up we talked some more about Michael's nose until Majestic that was Joe Jackson's helper until Majestic, that was Joe Jackson's helper, until Majestic said, don't ask that question again.

This led to a conversation about the perception of Michael's eccentricities. Finding a theme he could warm to, Joe momentarily came to life, decrying the tabloid moniker his son had been saddled with, which he slightly misremembered as Jack-o'-whack-o. You need to stop that, he said. And then, with the inevitability of a hitman whose time has come to finish the job, I raised the subject of Michael's romantic interests. Would you like to see Michael settle down with a partner, I asked. What's a partner, Joe said. A loved one? A wife? Majestic asked from off camera.

A boyfriend or girlfriend? I clarified. A what? Majestic said. You trying to say Michael is gay now? Turn the camera off. A verbal squabble ensued with Majestic saying several more times, Turn the camera off! As Will, who was filming, protested, and I persevered. You're asking me the wrong question, Joe said. If I'd known this was going to be talked about, I would never give you the chance to do this. Never. We don't believe in gays. I can't stand them.

There were more expressions of outrage and dismay. Joe seemed to be struggling with the basic concept of homosexuality. Are you saying having a boyfriend as a girlfriend? I wasn't sure how to answer this. No, I said. Or was I? A boyfriend as a girlfriend? I supposed I might be.

I don't know what Michael's romantic interests are, I said. I don't know which way he goes. Well, certainly I'm telling you right now. It's not with no boys, Joe said. It's not that, okay? Then he said, Anyway, Majestic, I'm going to have to end this. I tried to warn you, Majestic said.

It's over. And it was. I'm going to take another question now at this point. What's your name, please? I'm Carrie Bell. Carrie Bell. You did a program about eating disorders, which I couldn't watch

because it was filmed at the eating disorder hospital I was in, and I buried six friends, and I couldn't watch it in case any of my friends were in it. And I just wanted to know, how did you come away from interviewing the girls at the Vincent Square Clinic? Okay, so a question about eating disorders. Welcome, by the way, and I hope your health is good, and thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. You know, when we were making the program about eating disorders,

there's a temptation as a program maker or a journalist that you're looking, you're trying to find the cause. You know, like, what's behind this? What is this really about? And so partway through the process, I realized, well, I don't think that's going to get us anywhere. Like, the idea that oh it's an issue with parenting or it's an issue with genetics or that in a sense that's an that's a not a solvable mystery but what I did realize was that you know the best we could do was attempt to map and anatomize as clearly as possible

the way in which it's experienced. And what struck me was the sense in which the illness becomes incorporated into the personality and the way in which, oddly, it's mixed in with positive qualities, qualities of conscientiousness, orderliness, self-control. And in a lot of my programs, I like to explore ambiguities, and I was really...

If anything, you might agree with this, as a cohort, the people with eating disorders tend to be high achievers like who admirable people people that you would want to work alongside uh or you would want you know to trust an important job to and and that that's what's um at the same time you know you know we were talking about michael jackson it's a sense in which it's a disease that grooms you. It flatters you that it has the answers, that it's your friend, that you can depend upon it.

And all the while, it has this other agenda, which is to undermine and abuse you. So I think it became for me another lesson among many in the ways in which good and bad qualities tend to exist almost symbiotically side by side. Thank you very much for that question. One of the things I like most about your work, and you as a person, dare I say it, is your reluctance to judge people. You say at one point in the book, the proper subject of documentaries is people doing things that they're not supposed to do.

The supposed tos may themselves be wrong-headed. The people may be right in what they do. But the feeling of being at loggerheads with certain norms and conventions is always present. That's what I interrogate. That's what I'm interested in. A lot of these people that you interact with are rationalizing what most of us would consider fairly extreme or even abhorrent behavior of various kinds. But we all, there's an appreciation, I think, that we all are rationalizing odd things as a part of life all the time you know a kind of cognitive dissonance that we engage in just to get through life and being alive and all the weird things that we do how much are you aware of that in your own life are there are there things that you think wow this, this is really weird, that you're sort of waking up to?

Like I'm thinking about people's attitudes to animals that seems to be in the process of changing quite radically and people changing their eating habits and thinking a lot more about how we treat animals and what they go through and how we exploit them. Well, that's the big one, isn't it? But I think my own sense is that weirdness is built into the human condition

and there's many situations in which there's no right way of doing things and that every option looked at a certain way is a bad option. You know, I don't want to trivialize this, but one of the things I say in the book is like there's something quite weird about um polyamory like the idea of having multiple relationships with uh you know committed relationships with other people like being in a polycule to use the term of three or four or a thruple but there's also something quite weird

about monogamy yeah that you're going to say I'm only going to have carnal relations with one person for the next 60 or 70 or 80 or 90 years that's quite weird isn't it so there's cases in which there's no

right way of doing things ethics doesn't supply answers we're given these bodies, you know, the whole condition of mortality seems to be predicated on a sort of impossible situation. But animals is the big one. Like, I think we've all been guilty of thinking, I'm doing something that I can't really explain why it's right. In fact, it probably isn't right, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm a vegetarian in theory, but not in practice. Which I think isn't actually a thing.

I know when you were at college, you read Michel de Montaigne, the essay writer. He's got that essay on custom i know that one yeah and uh his thing is habit blinds the eye of our judgment i.e you know we just get used to things and then we think that they're definitely the right way to do things and that anyone else in the rest of the world who does things in a different way must be crazy um but it is weird like when you there are so many examples in everyday rest of the world who does things in a different way must be crazy but it is weird like when you there are so many examples in everyday life of just

little strange toilet brushes what's the problem with toilet brushes just the idea of that you've got it what you're doing with it and then you just sit it back in a little,

oh, you're going to pop it in the little bowl there for next time, rather than kind of taking it outside and hosing it down and bleaching it and getting rid of it, incinerating it after what you've just done with it. No, let's give it a little shake. a little shake. I was thinking more about ties. Weird bit of cloth around your neck. What's it for? Yes.

What's that bit of cloth around your neck? What's it doing? This is our Michael McIntyre section of the evening. What's up with that? Speaking of relationships and personal things, I suppose maybe that's one of the reasons why they asked me to talk to you was that, I don't know. You're in the book. Can we acknowledge that? Oh, yes, I'm in the book. Yeah, we should acknowledge that. And three chapters are about growing up. And chapter two features Adam Buxton. Not very much. I mean, there could have been more, I thought.

You were my saviour. Like, I was friendless. I'd skipped a year. I was identified as a studious kind of exam, kind of guy who's going to do well in his exams. And he would accelerate two terms a year at the private school that we went to. I'm not going to plug it.

I'm not going to name it. It's a plug. And so as a result, I was a late developer anyway. So I entered sixth form alongside Adam and Joe and many others. Largely hairless. My head had hair, but I had no other hair. Well, you were over a year younger than us. I was more than a year younger than you.

Piccolo-voiced, sort of man-child. Alongside other boys who were literally, not only their voices had broken, some of them were starting to go bald. the boys who were literally, not only their voices had broken, some of them were starting to go bald. And fully developed girls. Women girls.

And there was me going like, hi, my name's Louis, I got 10 O levels. I got 10 A's. Do you want to go to a film? I've got 10 O levels. Do you want to go to a film? I've got 10 A's. Don't crowd me, fans. You were on that sort of level.

And then finally, when they opened the coupon, I wandered out and I was friendless. And then I met Adam and Joe and we sort of hit it off and I felt, okay, I've got some friends who actually I like and they're interesting and they're funny and I kind of had a place in the world at the school. Well, it was funny because... Oh, that is nice. Thank you.

And I've never had a chance to acknowledge that publicly. Can I have a big hand for Adam Buxton? Hey! Thanks. Thanks, man. That is very nice. I like it. So is that making up for the fact

that you describe me in the book as cuddly and ingratiating? Cuddly to me is a double adjective because it could mean someone who cuddles, but it's also someone who elicits the urge to cuddle. Someone who's good to cuddle. Which is the sense in which I intended it. And ingratiating definition one, in my understanding, is charming and disarming. There is a secondary meaning that is less flattering. That's not the one I meant. To what extent do you have to run things past people when you're writing a book like this?

What's your subtext? Well, you're quite candid. I should have showed it to you before. No, honestly, to be serious, I'm delighted and flattered, and it's done my ego no end of good to be mentioned several times in an airport book you should go further back is there a ranging mic at the upper

I always feel bad for the upper echelons not for the royal boxes they look so smug in there space boxes like drawers that have been pulled out like jewellery drawers i have a microphone is there someone up there someone has the mic in the netherworld someone has wrestled the mic hello representing the back um my question is and we've talked a little bit about it this evening is your reaction to interviewees and also topics that have been quite probing.

Very poker-faced. How do you then process the interviews that come up with conflicting topics or interviewees to your own opinions and feelings and background? How do you then leave those interviews and deal with them? I'm going to say I got 60% of that.

I think I can construct the rest. I mean, because the question I get asked more than any other is, how do you remain so calm, especially when you're out in worlds that would be highly provocative? I'll give you an example of one time that I noted, like, oh, I haven't seen him do that before, was when you did the thing about the fellow who was drinking very heavily, drinking to oblivion, and he was just so lost and unhappy at one point, he just hugged you,

and there was nothing you could do but hug him back. You weren't going to stand there stiff as a board. But that looked harrowing and sad and and i probably wasn't that comfortable i mean he really wanted a hug yeah and i think i was more the huggy than the hugger in that particular clinch but it would be churlish to refuse to be hugged wouldn't it yeah be pretty weird even for what was the term in a someone who's emotionally in a black hole a black hole of emotion so you know i think an appropriate level of emotional engagement is fine i think the thing you have to remember is if i uh i'm interviewing a neo-nazi

right i've got a pretty good idea that that's what's about to happen. In other words, I've read my notes. I've been planning the shoot for weeks, if not months. I've been on a long plane ride. I've gone on a drive. I've arrived at a house. I've knocked on the door.

And if the person came to the door and I said, are you a Nazi? And they said, no, I would be shocked. But if they say, yes, I'm not shocked, I'm kind of relieved because I know I've come to the right place. And there's a sense in which that's what I've come for. I'm prepared to engage with a worldview that's utterly foreign to my own. The exception is when, if someone's having a go at me, it turns out I'm less tolerant. I'm less tolerant of direct attacks on me. And when I made a film about Scientology, I kept getting accused of trespassing.

And it was strange. Like, I seemed to be fine with bigoted, you know, hearing them anyway and interviewing people about them. But when I was accused by a woman outside the Scientology headquarters called Catherine Fraser, and she kept saying, you need to leave. You've trespassed. I'm going to call the cops. Are you a moron? You need to leave. Can you read? Do you know what a sign is? And I found myself getting irritated. And my feeling, like suddenly I wasn't in passive black hole of emotion, Louis Theroux. I was like annoyed, you know, hang on, stop it. You know, what are you doing? No, I can read. And no, stop it. I haven't trespassed several times. And I had skin in the game. So is that an answer to the question?

I think so. But whether it is or not, time's up. Thank you very much indeed. Louis Theroux. And thank you, Adam Buxton Wait This is an advert for Squarespace Every time I visit your website I see success

Yes, success The way that you look at the world Makes the world want to say yes. It looks very professional. I love browsing your videos and pics and I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace.

Just visit squarespace.com slash buxton for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code BUXTON to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. Hey, welcome back, podcats. I am in ornithological low voice mode because there is a bird, a little bird,

in the branches of this tree. I'm going to see if I can identify it with my app. Some of you are probably listening and thinking, duh, don't you know what that is? That is the most obvious bird call in the world. But not to me, mate. I don't know what's going on out in the country. I can identify indie music from the late 70s and some of the 80s, but when it comes to nature, forget about it. Okay, let's record all right there we go that's a good clean recording let's see what it says

that is according to my app almost certainly a yellow hammer. Emberezza citronella. The song starts with several fast chirps, rather like a grasshopper, followed by one or two long TZI notes. It is traditionally described as a little bit of bread and no cheese. What? Little bit of bread and no cheese. I'm quite happy with that app. As I say, not sponsored by it, so I won't bang on about it too much, but I'll put a link in the description of the podcast

in case you want to see the one I was using. Anyway, welcome back, podcats. That was Louis Theroux, of course, talking to me there in September of 2019 in front of a big audience at the beautiful Royal Festival Hall back in pre-COVID times. Still very hard to imagine people packing into an auditorium in that way again, certainly in the next few years. But who knows? I don't know. Surprisingly. Buckles, I thought you would know. No, I don't. Oh dear. I'm supposed to be doing a show there myself. I think, well, it's been moved so many times. I think they're looking at July. There will be details on my blog, and I might send a newsletter out when the dates firm up a bit more. If you would like to sign up for the newsletter, by the way. I don't send many out.

But when I do, boy, is it like receiving an email with probably a picture of me and Rosie in it and some blub about things. Yes, it is. And you can sign up for it on my blog, adam-buxton.co.uk. I'll put a link in the description. What else have we got in the description? have we got in the description? Oh, well, there's a link to the Royal Festival Hall website and I'm very grateful to the events team there

for letting me use an edited portion of the audio from that evening with Louis. Thanks a lot. Oh, podcat. It's the perfect temperature. It's fresh, but not too cold. When that sun goes down, it might start to get a bit bitey.

But right now, it's just fine, thank you. And the last rays of the sun, the evening sun, lighting the trees up all gold and shit. The light reminds me of one of those scenes from The Lord of the Rings or one of the Hobbit movies where all the Hobbits are hanging out on their Hobbit terraces and, you know, having Hobbit tea and some Hobbit knobs and just having a great friendly Hobbit time. Meanwhile, here I am. The Norfolk Hobbit with my hobbit dog friend. I'm not exactly sure where she's gone. Rosie, come on.

Time to head back. Oh, look at that fly pass from the hairy bullet. Haven't had one of those in a few weeks. What else have we got in the links? Well, I collected together links to all the episodes of this podcast that Louis has appeared on so far. I think he is my most frequent guest. Today's would have been his eighth appearance.

I think that's even more than Corn Bull not 100 sure about that anyway if you want to go on a through binge open up those description links what else have we got oh yeah i've got links to my book i did a book you know ramble book it's called you can still get that it's got lots of great stories in it about growing up in the 80s, Louis pops up, Joe pops up quite a bit, my dad hovers over the whole thing like a kind of fun Darth Vader. And it's a lot of memories of my formative cultural influences, the films, the TV, the music. I recommend getting the audiobook, which I put a great deal of effort into and features an hour-long chat with Joe Cornwall's Cornish at the end, exclusive to the audiobook.

And it's got jingles. Get the audiobook and a physical copy and read along with the audio book. Because the physical copy's got photos, so you can see what everyone looked like. And it's beautifully designed. Featuring gorgeous illustrations from the excellent Helen Green, who, of course, is responsible for the artwork for this podcast. Speaking of thank yous, thanks very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell

for his production support. Thanks once again to the events team at the Royal Festival Hall. Thanks to Louis. Thanks very much to Emma Corsham for her conversation edit work on this episode. Thanks, Emma. Thanks to the team at ACAST for all the stuff they do to keep this podcast on the rails. Much appreciated. But thanks most especially to you for downloading this and other episodes and continuing to make it fun to do. I appreciate it.

Hope you're doing all right wherever you are. And until next we meet, which shouldn't be too long, less than a week, I hope. My plan is to try and get another episode out that's been on the shelf a little bit too long for technical reasons. But I'm hoping to get that out sometime during the week before another episode next weekend. I'm going all out to do my bit for keeping you entertained during lockdown three. No, that's fine. Well, you want a hug too? Yeah, all right.

You smell nice. I love you. Bye! Like and subscribe Like and subscribe Please like and subscribe Give me like a smile and a thumbs up Nice like a pat when we bums up Give me like a smile and a thumbs up Nice like a pat when we bums up Like and subscribe

Like and subscribe Like and subscribe Please like and subscribe Give me like a smile and a thumbs up Nice like a pat when we bums up Like and subscribe. Thank you.