Latest news with #Theroux
Press and Journal
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Press and Journal
Review: Louis Theroux faces dad's critique of Aberdeen as 'miserable' on first visit to city
Louis Theroux is an effortlessly entertaining raconteur. He had the audience at Aberdeen Music Hall captivated, and occasionally roaring with laughter, as the veteran interviewer became interviewee on Wednesday night. The TV legend went from discussing his experiences with real-life monsters like Jimmy Savile and Fred Phelps to opening up about his ambitions to write his own sitcom during the near-two-hour tour de force. Fans of the 'complete misfit in every way' certainly got their money's worth, treated to a range of insights and observations on everything from the rise of the Far Right to 'cancel culture' – as well as a few pretty decent impressions. But Theroux maybe got more than he bargained for when interviewer Fiona Stalker went back through the generations, bringing his dad's words back to haunt him. Paul Theroux, a famed travel writer and novelist, apparently once deemed Aberdeen the 'most miserable and unfriendly place' he had ever lived. Much worse, in fact, than London. Taking it in good spirits, Theroux vowed to tell his dad he 'was so wrong', while explaining that this sort of put-down was the author's 'brand' at the time. He added: 'He's quite a nice man a lot of the time.' Perhaps still eager to atone, the TV star would later make sure to commend Aberdeen-born singer Annie Lennox too. 'What a great voice, a great ambassador…', he mused earnestly. But there was, of course, much more to the show than this. My earliest memories of Louis Theroux include him being slammed to the mat in the WCW training camp as he explored the world of American pro-wrestling during one of his Weird Weekends in the late 1990s. I've watched pretty much everything of his since then, read his books and listened to his podcast in lockdown. I've even listened to the All The Way Theroux podcast, which goes through his catalogue of shows in detail. So yes, I am a fan. And there was a welcoming buzz in the air, with the sense that so many in the sold-out audience were happy just to spend some time in the great man's company. Theroux revealed how he initially hoped to become a sitcom writer before becoming a documentary-maker, and it appears that, even decades later, the dream is still alive. When asked how he sees his career evolving in the next 25 years, Theroux said he could see himself spending more time behind the camera… Maybe as a drama or sitcom writer. Avid Theroux followers like myself will have heard him discuss his time with Jimmy Savile a few times by now. He has his doubts over whether he managed to show what sort of man the predator really was during a Weird Weekend with him. But it's still a fascinating subject to hear him elaborate on, as he tells us how he and his crew managed to capture at least a hint of the steely TV presenter's dark side. Even all these years on, there's still some regret that he might have been 'hoodwinked'. Theroux was in Aberdeen as part of the Ultimate Masterclass Festival, which tonight brings comedian James Corden to the Music Hall. Host Ryan Crighton explained these events had been arranged not to 'bring celebrities to Aberdeen and slap them with a bus gate fine', but to usher folk into the city centre. They had been hoping for 'busy bars and restaurants' as people made a night of it. Having combined the show with a first visit to the amazing new Filipino restaurant Kultura on Belmont Street, I think it must have worked! Review: An Inspector Calls makes for a thrilling night of intrigue at HMT in Aberdeen Review: Rowdy Aberdeen fans celebrate Shane MacGowan as Christmas comes to city on Easter Sunday
The Guardian
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The disturbing tale of one family's flight from the Nazis: best podcasts of the week
When poet, novelist and journalist Joe Dunthorne decided to write a family history, he had no idea what he was getting into. His journey started, unpromisingly, with a turgid 2,000-page memoir written by his great-grandfather Siegfried. But while looking for an account of his family's escape from Nazi Germany, Dunthorne found something much more disturbing. This gripping podcast follows him as he reconstructs an erased history. Phil Harrison BBC Sounds, episodes weekly After his excellent BBC documentary on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, Theroux ably shifts gears. Series five of his celebrity interview show kicks off with The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey – who is warm and wise on gender, fame and autism – with rapper/actor Little Simz and anti-ageing obsessive Bryan Johnson to follow. Hannah J Davies Widely available, episodes weekly Benedict Townsend goes back to 2012 for this eight-part exploration of TikTok precursor Vine. The short-form video app was huge, thanks in no small part to a $30m acquisition by Twitter. Townsend scrupulously charts its rise and fall, from the breakout stars to the brands that exploited the nascent creator economy. HJD Widely available, episodes weekly A new series of the meaty investigative podcast centred on people living double lives. Sarah Cavanaugh made headlines in 2022 with her audacious tale of stolen valour (she wasn't a decorated US marine veteran, nor was she dying of cancer as she claimed when she obtained financial help intended for former personnel). Jake Halpern and Jess McHugh go deep into her deception. HJD Widely available, episodes weekly Sign up to What's On Get the best TV reviews, news and features in your inbox every Monday after newsletter promotion Katie Stokes is in her mid-20s, and should be having the time of her life in London – so why is she so lonely? This delightful series from the Transmission Roundhouse initiative sees the audio producer get real about our lack of 'third places' away from home and work. HJD Widely available, episodes weekly
Middle East Eye
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
My message to the Palestinians: We have not forgotten you, but we have failed you
One minute to midnight. This is the phrase that kept coming back to me after returning from the occupied Palestinian territories, as I tried to process the overwhelming persecution I had seen there. What midnight itself looks like - the moment the clock finally strikes - is too bleak to picture fully, though with the haunting horrors of Gaza now etched into the global conscience, many can likely imagine it all too vividly. A week has passed since that visit. As expected, it stirred little interest in mainstream media circles. So it was something of a relief to see Louis Theroux's powerful documentary on Israeli settlers ignite a spark of public conversation. Theroux's work has drawn criticism. Some say he misrepresented the settler community, even co-opting the term. I disagree. If anything, 'settlers' is far too soft a word. It conjures an image of calm arrival, snowflakes falling gently, or weary travellers gathering around a fire. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters But what we witnessed, what Theroux documented, were not settlers. They were occupiers. Colonisers. They were not 'settling' - they were unsettling everyone and everything around them. The phrase 'God-given right' is one we often hear, usually metaphorically. But here, in these hills and towns, it takes on its most chillingly literal form. Storm of injustice We saw it unfold with our own eyes: armed Israeli settlers openly grazing their livestock on land legally owned by an 82-year-old Palestinian man. With trembling hands and tears in his eyes, he presented his documents, handed down to him by his father, pleading his case to anyone who would listen - but no one in power did. Around him stood a few disheartened Palestinian onlookers, some Israeli and international human rights activists, myself and the rest of the delegation I was with - observers helpless to intervene in a scene that felt almost performative in its cruelty. Follow Middle East Eye's live coverage of the Israel-Palestine war The settlers stood armed, as so many of them are, emboldened by a state-backed police vehicle idling nearby. Officers watched over them, armed, silent, eerily menacing. The sheep, oblivious, kept grazing. The injustice lingered in the air like a storm that never breaks. It was a microcosm of the broader reality: the colonisers keep colonising, while the colonised are left in stunned disbelief, and the so-called international rules-based order looks on - at best sheepishly murmuring disapproval, but doing little else. What we witnessed were not settlers. They were occupiers. Colonisers. They were not 'settling' - they were unsettling everyone and everything around them Israel violates international law with impunity, backed unequivocally by western powers, and the world turns away - unknowing, uncaring, or perhaps both. This wasn't a one-off incident. The same story replayed itself again and again, in different settings and with different tones. In Hebron, we stood outside the home of our Palestinian host as two settlers - with complete confidence and disdain - informed him that they would soon be taking his house. They demanded that all Arabs leave the land, hurled obscenities at Arabs and the Prophet Muhammad, and spat slurs as they walked away flipping middle fingers - all under the passive watch of Israeli soldiers. British MP Shockat Adam and MP Andrew George during a visit to the Occupied West Bank in April 2025 (Supplied) When asked why they had the right to act this way, they simply replied: 'God gave us this land,' as though such vitriol was justified in God's name. Hurtling towards catastrophe Then there is Al-Aqsa Mosque, sacred to more than two billion Muslims worldwide - and now visibly under threat. During our visit, which coincided with Passover, the entrances were blocked by Jewish worshippers who danced and sang songs about how they would return to build the Third Temple where Al-Aqsa stands. Flags depicting the Third Temple flutter across Jerusalem, growing in visibility. Settlers escorted by armed Israeli security forces walk inside Al-Aqsa compound. All the while, Muslim and Christian worshippers are routinely denied entry into their places of worship. Louis Theroux forces Britain to face uncomfortable truth of Israeli settler barbarism Read More » This, too, is part of a trajectory - one that carries dangerous implications. Altering the character of Al-Aqsa threatens the very fabric of religious coexistence in Jerusalem. A local guide described Jerusalem's religio-cultural blend to me as a 'mosaic', but today a sledgehammer is being taken to this beautiful mosaic, to be replaced by a homogenous slab. If such provocations continue unchecked, we may be hurtling towards a catastrophe far greater than we dare to admit. While the world's eyes are rightly fixed on Gaza and the unfolding genocide there, we cannot ignore what is happening in the occupied West Bank. The dehumanisation of Palestinians there continues, often hidden in bureaucratic terms and sanitised headlines - but it is real, and it is accelerating. The late Dr Eyad el-Sarraj, founder of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, once said that the occupation had left Palestinians 'exhausted, tormented and brutalised'. I saw this vividly on the face of a young, widowed mother in Tulkarm, a town now home to new waves of displaced Palestinians. She clutched her child's hand tightly, the little girl clinging to her skirt. Her voice barely rose above a whisper when she told me: 'You have forgotten us.' I wanted to deny it. I assured her that we hadn't; that we remembered her, her daughter, her people. And while that might be true in sentiment, in action, I realised something far harder to say aloud: No, we have not forgotten them. But yes - we have failed them. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
New Statesman
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
What Louis Theroux gets wrong about the West Bank
Photo by Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images To an Israeli, watching both Louis Theroux's The Settlers and the response to it has been a strange experience. The film revisits the project of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Theroux previously explored in 2011. It reiterates the danger that the settler movement poses to the prospect of Palestinian statehood, and showcases two archetypes of the movement: the frontiersmen, personified here by an outpost-dwelling horse-wrangler; and the provocateur, personified by veteran settler leader Daniella Weiss. Rachel Cooke wrote in these pages earlier that the film is a 'deathly warning'; in the more avowedly pro-Israel press it has been castigated for focusing on a handful of extremists who, apparently, don't represent Israel as a whole. There's some truth to the film's argument and to both of these responses. But all three – Theroux, his fans and his critics – manage to miss the point. First – to borrow a Bushism – the film misunderestimates even the issue it does try to tackle: settlement expansion. Theroux points out that the population of settlers has more than doubled since the Oslo peace process in the 1990s (which in itself means that the settlers successfully derailed that process when they were three times weaker and far more isolated than they are now). But his film doesn't show just how sprawling these settlements have become. They aren't just cosy suburbs, eco-resorts and hilltop encampments; they spread over over 30 industrial zones, shopping malls, colleges (including a sizeable university) and dormitory towns. Moreover, while we catch a glimpse of a dense settlement map, Theroux's film doesn't pause to explain that the locations of these settlements don't merely threaten a future Palestinian state – they have already made anything recognisably state-like physically impossible on the ground. They have isolated the West Bank permanently from the rest of the Arab world by largely depopulating and de facto annexing the Jordan Valley, which runs between the bulk of the would-be Palestinian state and Jordan. The accelerated expulsion of entire Palestinian communities from the West Bank over the past year and a half exposes any pretence Israel would cede control over it to a Palestinian entity. Palestinian statehood isn't threatened by settlement expansion; its demise is a fait accompli, and refusing to acknowledge that actually offers the leeway Weiss and her accomplices need to move onto the next goal – annexation and expulsion. But the change between Theroux's first film and his second runs much further and deeper than the hilltops. Like most other Western coverage of the issue, the film appears to exist in 1990s time warp, where the settlers are a militant, insidious minority dragging Israel, an otherwise modern and pragmatic state, into their agenda. In real life, the movement has always been closely linked to the state: military bases and their accompanying infrastructure don't just magically turn up at random militant outposts that are supposedly illegal, wink wink, under international or even Israeli law (though some settlements are deemed legal under Israeli law while still being illegal under international law). But now, in 2025, the settlements are the state, and the settlers are the military. Especially since Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005 – a pivotal moment for the settlement movement, which viewed the evacuation of settlements in Gaza as a massive setback and a betrayal – a massive effort has been under way to colonise not only hilltops in the West Bank, but the very infrastructure of the Israeli state. Settlers set up communes and communities in mixed Arab-Jewish cities like Lod and Jaffa, while there was a push to increase the number of settlers and their allies in both the judiciary and civil service. This effort has been a runway success. When Daniella Weiss tells Theroux she calls Netanyahu's aides, not Netanyahu himself, she's probably not being entirely truthful. But more to the point, neither she nor Theroux dwell on the fact that the closest aides to Netanyahu are as likely as not to be settlers themselves. The same can be said for an ever-growing number of civil servants and two of the 15 justices on Israel's Supreme Court. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Then there's the army. The number of graduates of religious, right-wing schools among infantry cadets in the IDF had already increased tenfold between 1993 and 2008. Today – alongside a general rightward drift of Israeli students and educators – the most pronounced change is happening via pre-military colleges, which offer students the opportunity to defer the draft for a year in order to acquire additional knowledge and skills. These colleges come in most political flavours; but ones located in the West Bank, or sympathetic to the settler movement, produce the most graduates, injecting thousands of ideologically committed conscripts and combat volunteers yearly into the military. The shift is notable in the current war in Gaza, where significant numbers of infantry casualties, as well as several of the most prominent and high-ranking officers accused of war crimes, are settlers or graduates of pro-settler colleges. Then there is the private sector. Settlements bloomed during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the liberalisation of the welfare state began pushing many lower-income families from social housing in the mainland to cheap private housing in settlements. Today, settlements attract more and more of the perennially squeezed Israeli middle class, who are then rewarded with more than just better housing: the state invests 30 percent more per child in settlement schools than in mainland Israel. There have been attempts in the UK to boycott produce from settlements but even a completely successful boycott of identifiably settler produce would make much of a difference to the movement. Services form the bulk of Israel's economy and most settlements primarily act as commuter belts to Israel's larger economic hubs. Meanwhile, the state's entire economy is deeply implicated in the settlements. There isn't a single major Israeli bank that would refuse to grant someone a mortgage to buy a house in a settlement (even if illegal under international law), or lend someone money to start a business there, which means all of the money circulating in Israel's financial system is contaminated to one degree or another. And the past year has brought over changes as well. An Oslo-style two-state partition had begun to seem untenable long before the current war, perhaps already a decade ago or more. According to Peace Now, which tracks settlement expansion, nearly 60 outposts were established in 2024 alone, compared to a historical yearly average of seven or lower. Over the course of the year, 47 Palestinian communities were expelled altogether. And in June 2024, a monumental legal shift saw administrative responsibility for settlements passed from the IDF to the civilian government, ending the pretence that settlements are anomalies within a military occupation. The pace of expansion and annexation is only picking up, to zero action and virtually zero interest from Western states that still propagate a two-state solution that is in the final stages of being crushed. Above all, it's all but impossible to gauge from films like Theroux's how deeply normalised settlements have become within Israel. Having over 500,000 settlers in a country of just seven million means that most of the rest of us Israelis know someone from a settlement as a relative, a colleague, a friend or a comrade-at-arms. The opposition candidate with the greatest likelihood of toppling Netanyahu in next year's general election is Naftali Bennet, who is strongly identified with the settler movement but still expected to mop up the majority of the vote from Israel's mass protest movement, rooted though it is in secular, socially liberal Tel Aviv. There is currently no political leader of any consequence calling for settlements to be evacuated; even the new leader of the Labor Party, Yair Golan, has endorsed annexation of most of the West Bank. Can anything be done? Technically, there are steps that could still be taken to restrain the settlements. Western sanctions on a handful of especially violent settlers last year sent jitters through Israeli banks, who found themselves forced to freeze the relevant accounts even as the government struggled to devise countermeasures that wouldn't implicate the entire system. If the UK or Europe began conditioning trade with Israeli banks on these institutions halting activity with settlers, it would be like dousing the entire Israeli economy in nitrogen. But in terms of political will in European capitals, this is like saying we could, technically, stop climate change by imposing a moratorium on fossil fuels. The West's refusal to take any concrete steps to enforce partition in the West Bank has been matched only by reluctance to begin considering alternatives to two states. This is the crux of the formula that allows Israeli expansion in the West Bank – and in Gaza, where Israel is very much headed for permanent conquest and resettlement, by way of ethnic cleansing and mass starvation. If the world missed the window to impose two states, it should start developing its own standards of what a non-apartheid single state can look like; to upend the agenda of the settlers and decree that they can't have both complete hegemony over the land between the river and the sea, while excluding half the population from government. Otherwise, the new reality will continue being shaped by the most belligerent of settlers, while the left continues to debate what might have been. [See also: The war to end all peace] Related
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Activist in Louis Theroux Settlers documentary ‘targeted in revenge raid'
An activist who featured in Louis Theroux's BBC documentary about the West Bank has allegedly had his home raided in 'revenge' for his participation in the film. Issa Amro was one of the Palestinians featured in Theroux's controversial documentary, The Settlers, which sought to shine a light on radical members of the Jewish settler community and violence perpetrated towards nearby Palestinians. The film, which aired in late April, follows the scandal of another BBC documentary 'Gaza, how to survive a warzone', which was revealed to have used the son of a Hamas minister as a narrator. Mr Amro said that his home was raided by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) over the weekend and that his son had been harassed by members of the settler community. He said that Israeli soldiers appeared at his Hebron home, in the southern West Bank, without a warrant and attacked him, a friend, and damaged his property. A spokesman for the IDF said soldiers had acted to 'disperse a confrontation between Palestinian residents and Israeli civilians'. Oscar winner arrested Since the beginning of the war which followed the October 7 massacre in 2023, IDF personnel in the West Bank are more likely to come from settler communities. In March, Hamdan Ballal, who won the Oscar for Best Documentary for his portrayal of settler violence in the West Bank, was allegedly beaten by local settlers before being arrested and humiliated by the IDF – although the army said they had arrested local Palestinians for acts of violence. He claimed he heard soldiers mention the Oscar during the alleged ordeal. Mr Amro said: 'It's very dangerous to speak out about the things I talk about. My friends warn me all the time, 'Issa, you're going to get yourself killed'. 'But I am afraid about the future. It's getting more dangerous here. I felt it was really important to be a part of this.' Teenage son harassed The new BBC film is a follow-up to Theroux's 2011 documentary The Ultra-Zionists. In it, he interviewed Daniella Weiss, known as the 'godmother' of the settler movement, which seeks to develop Jewish communities in areas outside the internationally recognised boundary of Israel. Some in Israel and the international Jewish community have said it gives a one-sided impression of the settler movement and the violence in the West Bank. Since the broadcast of the documentary, Mr. Amro has reported experiencing 'harassment,' which included being needlessly forced to go through police metal detectors multiple times at security checkpoints. He also claimed that, last Friday, settlers approached his 13-year-old son near the family home and attempted to forcibly take him towards a settlement. Israeli Police said: 'In general, any incident brought to our attention is reviewed according to police procedures and the law. 'The Israel Police remains committed to maintaining public order and ensuring the safety and rights of all individuals.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
