Louis Theroux Challenges UK Broadcasters To ‘Take Risks’
Acclaimed documentary maker Louis Theroux has given an impassioned speech about taking risks while making TV shows.
In his monologue, the Weird Weekends presenter stressed “the importance of dark and troubling programme making” but also said that “it’s understandable that mainline programme-makers may see risk in taking risks.”
He gave this year’s MacTaggart address at the Edinburgh TV Festival. The high-profile speech has been given by some big names such as Michaela Coel, Jon Snow, and Jeremy Paxman. Theroux’s lecture focused on the ‘Risk of Not Taking Risks.’
“From working so many years at the BBC, and still making programmes for the BBC, I see all-too-well the no-win situation it often finds itself in. Trying to anticipate the latest volleys of criticisms. Stampeded by this or that interest group. Avoiding offence,” he said.
“Often the criticisms come from its own former employees, writing for privately owned newspapers whose proprietors would be all too happy to see their competition eliminated.”
He continued by saying that not touching on subjects that are taboo means there are “missed opportunities.”
“And so there is an urge to lay low, to play it safe, to avoid the difficult subjects. But in avoiding those pinch points, the unresolved areas of culture where our anxieties and our painful dilemmas lie, we aren’t just failing to do our jobs, we are missing our greatest opportunities.”
The 53-year-old then spoke about making documentaries on disgraced TV star Jimmy Saville, who has been accused of abuse by various people. He explained that it was “fascinating” to investigate how Savile was used to “tarnish” the BBC’s reputation.
“It’s been fascinating and a little dispiriting, but maybe not that surprising, to see how the right and especially the far-right, even in America, have attempted to use Jimmy Savile, cynically, to tarnish the BBC.
“In the fever swamps of the Internet, Jimmy Savile has become a meme. A convenient and easy shorthand to discredit and besmirch the BBC and anyone who works there.”
He concluded, “It isn’t brave and risky to be inflammatory. What is brave is to not get swept along. Not to jump to conclusions, not to cast blame too broadly, not to pander to prejudice, to resist the easy wins of playing to an angry crowd.”
He said that his new documentary, Tell Them You Love Me, which looks at the controversial relationship between Anna Stubblefield, a married female professor, and Derrick Johnson, a Black non-verbal man with cerebral palsy, had “made [broadcasters] nervous” and that several turned it down. It was eventually acquired by and will air on Sky.
(featured image: Mike Marsland/WireImage)
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