Gotta Get Theroux This
My Life and Strange Times in Television
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Gotta Get Theroux This
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Narrated by:
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Louis Theroux
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By:
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Louis Theroux
About this listen
From much-loved documentary maker Louis Theroux comes a funny, heartfelt and entertaining account of his life and weird times in TV.
The audio edition is read by the author and contains an exclusive additional chapter.
The Sunday Times Bestseller.
'Honest and soul-searching' - Sunday Express
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In 1994 fledgling journalist Louis Theroux was given a one-off gig on Michael Moore’s TV Nation, presenting a segment on apocalyptic religious sects. Gawky, socially awkward and totally unqualified, his first reaction to this exciting opportunity was panic. But he’d always been drawn to off-beat characters, so maybe his enthusiasm would carry the day. Or, you know, maybe it wouldn’t . . .
In Gotta Get Theroux This, Louis takes the reader on a joyous journey from his anxiety-prone childhood to his unexpectedly successful career. Nervously accepting the BBC’s offer of his own series, he went on to create an award-winning documentary style that has seen him immersed in the weird worlds of paranoid US militias and secretive pro-wrestlers, get under the skin of celebrities like Max Clifford and Chris Eubank and tackle gang culture in San Quentin prison, all the time wondering whether the same qualities that make him good at documentaries might also make him bad at life.
As Louis woos his beautiful wife Nancy and learns how to be a father, he also dares to take on the powerful Church of Scientology. Just as challenging is the revelation that one of his old subjects, Jimmy Savile, was a secret sexual predator, prompting him to question our understanding of how evil takes place. Filled with wry observation and self-deprecating humour, this is Louis at his most insightful and honest best.
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'Funny, engaging' - Sunday Times
'Gripping' - Daily Mail
'Absorbing and surprisingly candid' - Telegraph Magazine
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Critic reviews
A good retrospective of Louis' Career
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A must read/listen
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I would recommend this book
Very detailed and entertaining
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He describes his childhood with his gifted but distant parents (he spent an awful lot of time watching TV with his equally aimless brother under the care of various au-pairs); his university days and his lamentable record of relationships with women including his 18 year association and near-fake marriage with 'Sarah' and - at last- a happy marriage with Nancy. The strains on their relationship with 2 young children, Louis constantly away and Nancy's own burgeoning career on hold is sensitively and honestly laid bare, as is his inability to feel enough for her through 2 later miscarriages.
Honesty blazes through all this and coupled with Louis's sardonic, scalpel humour and self-deprecatory manner makes this whole book hugely entertaining and thought provoking. His catalogue of weird and sometimes dangerous interviewees are constantly arresting from prisoner to abusers (Max Clifford pleasured under the table whilst sitting with his wife next to him); from the Hamiltons and Ann Widdecombe.to extreme sportsmen (the American wrestlers razoring their foreheads before a fight to maximise the blood).... Most dominant which had obviously affected Louis the deepest (and does rather distort the book as he keeps returning to it as well as giving us an extra chapter not in the book at the end) is Jummy Savile. Not because of his crimes so much as the fact that when he stayed with Savile in 2002, he knew he was alarmingly weird (his dead mother's clothes still in the wardrobe dry cleaned once a year) and hiding something, but failed to uncover his activities. Louis obviously has great conflict still, remembering the fondness which he had for Jimmy.
Supremely honest self-analysis and a stream of arresting incidents and people - and witty and sharp use of language - makes for 13 hours of 1st class listening.
I think that it might have been better if Louis had not attempted to recreate people's accents, tone and intonation - not all are successful.
Theroux through and through
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very cool. much like louis.
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