Life on the Edge
Louis Theroux reflects on 25 years of documentaries, featuring brand new conversations between him and his most memorable contributors.
Grounded with Louis Theroux
Louis Theroux’s using the lockdown to track down some high-profile people he’s been longing to talk to – a fascinating mix of the celebrated, the controversial and the mysterious. [podcast / BBC radio 4]
Louis Theroux: Selling Sex
Louis Theroux meets the women legally participating in the new sexual economy, exploring whether selling sex can ever be a healthy way to make money.
The Met: Policing London [series III]
Documentary following the officers of Britain’s biggest and busiest police service as they deal with life, death, crime and its victims, all across the capital.
Pick of the day / week – The Guardian, The Independent, Telegraph
Surviving America’s Most Hated Family
Sunday 14th July @ 9pm on BBC 2
Thirteen years since first encountering one of America’s most notorious hate groups, award-winning film-maker Louis Theroux makes a long-anticipated return to Kansas to spend time with the Westboro Baptist Church – a hugely-controversial Christian ministry that for years has picketed at military funerals and other high-profile events with deliberately provocative and homophobic placards.
In 2006 and again in 2011, Louis uncovered a world of indoctrination masterminded by church-founder and figurehead Pastor Fred Phelps, known amongst his congregation as Gramps. But since his death in 2014, the church has experienced a significant change that has threatened to tear apart what was once a tight-knit family community and challenged their relevance in Trump’s America, where outrageous statements are par for the course. As well as a series of allegations about Pastor Phelps’s final days, including rumours of mental illness and his excommunication, the church has also been hit by a number of high-profile family defections, including Pastor Phelps’s granddaughter Megan, now Westboro’s most prominent critic. Yet despite the unrest, the church has continued to attract new members, including Bradford-born Mathias Holroyd, who sees Westboro’s fire-and-brimstone rhetoric as the perfect tonic to his struggle to fit in with modern-day Britain.
Immersing himself in the strange and unpleasant world of Westboro, Louis explores what happens when a hate-group largely populated by one family loses its patriarch. And, as he discovers, Pastor Phelps’s doctrine of divine hate has cast a shadow not only on the church’s true-believers but also on those who have managed to escape Westboro’s vice-like grip.
Louis Theroux: Mothers On The Edge
Louis Theroux meets mothers experiencing mental health problems postpartum.
Sunday 12th May on BBC2 @ 9pm
Louis Theroux: The Night in Question
Louis Theroux heads to US college campuses and comes face-to-face with students accused of sexual assault.