Louis Theroux

Remember Boaty Mcboatface? Well, in Kentucky, there's a far-right activist called Beardson Beardly whose luxuriant facial hair makes him look (though I'm ...

There was shouting in a car park, and the weird spectacle of Theroux refusing to apologise for being white (Alaska said that he should, for this is what white people must do in liberal America). Oh, the bleakness, the desolation. Trapped in Fuentes’s basement as he recorded his extended rant, Theroux looked like he longed to stuff his ears with string cheese, or whatever else his adolescent interviewee might have had in his refrigerator. Theroux is braver than he used to be – or rather, he’s less happy to play the innocent. Does the rank inadequacy of Beardly and his associates (we’ll get back to those goons in a sec) make them more, or less, terrifying in political terms? When they chant “Christ is king!” or rant about how white people are “done with being bullied”, what they’re really expressing is their broken-heartedness. Remember Boaty Mcboatface? Well, in Kentucky, there’s a far-right activist called Beardson Beardly whose luxuriant facial hair makes him look (though I’m not sure he fully grasps this) more like a hipster baker than a guy who (allegedly) likes to use the Nazi salute.

Documentary maker Louis Theroux, whose new BBC series Forbidden America aired on Sunday night, said he married his ex-wife because she was struggling to ...

I could whisper but that was it. "She would go out and smoke cigarettes outside in front of the building. “You see, I was married,” Louis told The Financial Times in 2005. People didn’t really say 'hipster' in those days, but she had a touch of hipster. I would pass her in the corridors as she went out to smoke cigarettes." But Nancy claimed they had already met as she once attempted to speak to Louis in a lift but he didn’t answer, although the documentary maker says he finds that “had to believe”.

Louis Theroux is back for more. The certified National Treasure has returned to BBC Two with a new trio of television specials, entitled Louis Theroux's ...

In the piece he admits that his “decision to put some potentially dangerous and inflammatory figures on BBC Two primetime might appear flat-out weird and irresponsible”, but argues that “troubled, sometimes dangerous people are legitimate subjects of journalistic inquiry” and “with the right approach, speaking to people who have done terrible things can be a totally valid exercise”. “I fundamentally disagree with what you promote, and what you stand for,” he tells Nick Fuentes, one of the far-right personalities he gets to know. By the time of “Extreme and Online”, Theroux has become even more careful to ensure his audience doesn’t miss the point. Social media is such a powerful, all-encompassing force in our society that it merits constant and extensive scrutiny. To his credit, Theroux has always been clearly and openly self-analytical about his choices – a rare quality in celebrity creatives. But in the case of “Extreme and Online”, it feels like Theroux is simply spoiling for a fight. No “gotcha”. Just more self-righteous rage from the subjects and more weary incredulity from Theroux. There are a few insights about how far-right groups are structured and how followings are cultivated online, but again, nothing that necessitates these protracted one-to-ones. “Porn’s MeToo” airs at the end of the month, and looks at how social media has been used as a means of exposing abuse in the sex industry. This isn’t a problem confined to the bulletproof egomania of social media stars. The second episode, “Rap’s New Frontline”, focuses on Florida’s trap music scene, and the gang violence and social media feuds that surround it. The certified National Treasure has returned to BBC Two with a new trio of television specials, entitled Louis Theroux’s Forbidden America. The premise squats somewhere between his sensationalistic early work (Weird Weekends, which saw him plumb the lives of society’s peculiar outsiders) and his later, more sombre documentaries, which covered topics like grief, addiction, and euthanasia.