A lot of cracking guests have graced The Adam Buxton Podcast over the last few months, including Kathy Burke, Michael Palin and Richard Ayoade. His latest offering is a real treat, with Louis Theroux, “infantilism, questionable social habits and the never-ending challenges of parenting” on the menu.
There’s a home-made tone to Buxton’s “ramble chats” and silly jingles, but don’t be fooled: his podcasts are more revealing than most straightforward interviews. Friendship and time leaves room for tangents and a real insight into what makes Theroux tick.
Talking about his excellent documentary Drinking to Oblivion, Theroux touches on his own alcohol consumption. “White wine, Champagne, prosecco, tequila, certain drinks like that make me feel silly,” he says. “I get energy and I just get a feeling of tremendous well-being. I feel a bit weird saying that. If you get it right, you can hit that peak point of pleasure. After that it gets sloppy.”
“People were thrilled to see you being less callous and robotic than you normally would be,” Buxton says of Theroux’s last documentary. “You have a quality of aloofness, of detachment sometimes, which you need to have being semi-objective, making the films you make.”
Theroux is not fazed. “What? Like a ‘Why is there water coming from your eyes?’ sort of thing?” he says. “There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to be phoney. It’s a cheap trick in TV in general … we see so much of what appears to be fake emotion – or cynically used emotion – in things like Britain’s Got Talent and X Factor. Oh, lives have been transformed, soaring music, hugs. It’s cheap, isn’t it?”
Much can be learned about Theroux from the podcast. He leaves without warning when he’s ready to go home from a party, abandoning his wife. He regards 10.30pm as the “watershed” for the time to phone people. And he deliberately uses “Meaning?” and “Go on …” to keep his interviewees talking.
But the biggest revelation is his impressive falsetto of Yes Sir, I Can Boogie, which comes out after Buxton cracks open the energy drinks. (That’s not even a euphemism.) “It’s a very clean sound,” he claims, continuing until he has Dr Buckles in hysterics.
Hannah Verdier
If you like this, try… WTF with Marc Maron, The Tim Ferriss Show
