The globetrotting documentary-maker explains how Joe Wicks (and whisky) got him through lockdown — and shares an exclusive extract from his candid pandemic diaries.
Louis Theroux got through the lockdowns on burpees and bourbon. For the former, there were Joe Wicks's routines. For the latter, he discovered the brand Bulleit Bourbon, and drank a lot of it. "A Monday felt a lot like a Saturday. Every day was the same," he reasons. "If you're used to wine or beer, then drink bourbon, it's like going on holiday when they give you a rental car with a tricky clutch. You find you're accelerating much faster than you're used to."
We are meeting for coffee (not whisky), on a bright autumnal morning in London. He is dry and expressive company — lots of raised eyebrows over specs, exactly as he appears in his globetrotting TV documentaries. Unable to make those, he launched his Grounded with Louis Theroux podcast last year, which topped the charts thanks to his knack for getting the most out of his similarly locked-down interviewees. Now he has a book out about this strange past year and a bit, in which he turns the focus on himself.
"It is an attempt to understand my family life, the side that doesn't get seen," he says. "Reporting on a frontier that's the site of more angst and danger than any others — my home during a pandemic. That's not a joke. People ask where I've been that's most frightening: a skinhead rally or San Quentin prison? But our deepest feelings of emotional stress are in our front rooms. I'm doing a version of a programme about myself, observing my own weirdness."
And a lot of that involves drinking. In Theroux the Keyhole: Diaries of a grounded documentary maker, he writes "Did I drink too much? Was I struggling? Did I care?" He recounts nights turning vague, watching TV and not remembering much the next day. Was his wife, Nancy, concerned? "It did worry her," he admits. But this was how he managed his mental health. "I don't speak on behalf of all men. But what I can tell from 51 years of life is, many men feel down but do not fully realise it. I'm guilty of that and there were times when the stress of lockdown was managed by the sense of, 'A drink might help?' "