Celebrity interviews on TV need a radical refresh

The new BBC2 series Louis Theroux Interviews . . . delivers some surprising facts about its celebrity subjects. Who knew that the actor Judi Dench bought her home from the proceeds of a butter advert and hates being called a national treasure? Or that Stormzy, the rapper who appeared at Glastonbury in a stab-proof vest made by Banksy, hosts regular bible study groups at his home?

Theroux is a documentarian who made his name meeting figures on the margins of society, embedding himself with neo-Nazis, porn stars and survivalists. By contrast, Louis Theroux Interviews . . . is a decidedly mainstream project in which he gets acquainted with established figures from the worlds of film, music and entertainment (other guests include musician Yungblud, comic Katherine Ryan and adventurer Bear Grylls).

Yet there is something unusual, even radical, about this programme which shows famous people in their own habitats, introducing us to their families and fielding serious and searching questions about their lives. The series comes at a time when the celebrity interview appears, if not quite in decline, then stuck in its ways.

For years, The Graham Norton Show (on the BBC) and The Jonathan Ross Show (on ITV) have had the stranglehold on televised celebrity encounters, sweeping up all available A-listers for sofa-bound, ratings-busting, Friday-night chats revolving around whatever film/album/book they happen to be hawking at the time. The formats of both shows have remained unchanged since launching, although where they were once aimed at the post-pub crowd (Norton keeps a well-stocked bar on his show), now producers are more interested in social media, mining episodes for their meme-able moments.

The situation is hardly better in America where the chat show is a daily ritual, delivering brief and wilfully bland conversations with Hollywood’s crème de la crème, and where even the hosts appear to be tiring of the format. After 19 seasons, The Ellen DeGeneres Show breathed its last earlier this year while Trevor Noah is soon to retire from The Daily Show. James Corden, who masterminded the wildly popular and undeniably fun Carpool Karaoke segment, is also taking his leave from The Late Late Show after eight years in the job.

While chat shows strive to entertain viewers, there is little interest in providing meaningful insight into their subjects — instead, well-rehearsed anecdotes and promotional puffery are the order of the day. No wonder audio is streets ahead of television when it comes to in-depth conversations. The BBC Radio 4 series Desert Island Discs has survived decades of restructuring to become a broadcasting institution — an invitation to appear on it is now seen as a reward for years of service, up there with getting an OBE. The rise of podcasts over the past decade has also brought an uptick in long-form interview series, with comics Adam Buxton and Marc Maron leading the charge with conversations that dig deep and often stretch to well over an hour.

Theroux’s new series comes hot on the heels of his hugely successful podcast Grounded with Louis Theroux, a long-form interview show born out of its host’s desire to remain productive during lockdown. The series was notable for tackling difficult subjects — FKA Twigs discussed her experience of domestic abuse while Ruby Wax revealed how she spent years loathing Theroux for his success.

It feels significant that, after retiring from his late-night talk show, David Letterman hightailed it to Netflix to make My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, an interview series where conversations with guests, among them Barack Obama, Kim Kardashian, George Clooney and Jay Z, run at an hour a piece. (Next year brings a one-off special in which he talks to the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a Kyiv tube station.)

Perhaps the most striking thing about both Letterman’s and Theroux’s shows is the spirit of co-operation and openness in which they are approached by their interviewees. There is a sense that these figures, several of whom are known to guard their privacy, appreciate a longer format which allows for a nuanced and rounded portrait. None of them needs the publicity, but naked promotion isn’t the point. The aim is to pull back the curtain, and, just this once, tell us who they really are.

‘Louis Theroux Interviews . . . ’ is on BBC iPlayer in the UK. ‘My Next Guest Needs No Introduction’ with David Letterman is on Netflix