Grounded With Louis Theroux

BBC Sounds

Louis Theroux’s approach for the past 20 years has been to interview all sorts of weird and wonderful characters.

The affable journalist tends to do it on location, which is obviously a bit out of the question these days. Grounded With Louis Theroux, which has launched on the BBC Sounds app, takes the Bafta-winning broadcaster out of his comfort zone.

Instead of going on location to chat to the good, the bad and the ugly, Louis is instead taking a different approach. Grounded sees Louis chat to various celebrities via video calling. Louis’s friendly but awkward style seems perfect for the medium of podcasting, as he leads his subjects on long, meandering chats about their lives.

Kicking off the series is an hour-long conversation with journalist Jon Ronson, who wrote the books Them and The Men Who Stare At Goats.

The choice is an amusing one – the pair began their careers around the same time, have a similar awkward style and both interview outlandish characters.

“We talked about professional rivalry,” said Louis.“in some cases there’s been overlap in the topics we’ve pursued.

“We also talk about the 5G conspiracy theories being put around by David Icke – Jon has spent time with him.

“Normally, I take great pleasure in the immersion into other people’s lives,” he said.“i enjoy leaving myself for a bit and going into someone else’s mind.

“Here I have eye contact but you’re not in their homes, but I sort of am because I’m looking around through a laptop camera, although I don’t ask them to pick up the phone and show me things.

“It takes the DNA of what we did before and creates a new iteration.”