Louis Theroux says TV bosses are too scared of offending people – his own back catalogue proves his point

At the Edinburgh TV Festival this week, the documentary-maker gave a speech warning that an ‘atmosphere of anxiety’ is resulting in ‘less confident, less morally complex filmmaking’. As Theroux’s work often shows us, there are ways to navigate difficult topics without causing offence, writes Katie Rosseinsky

Louis Theroux, the patron saint of discomfort who thinks TV has become a bit too comfortable (BBC/Mindhouse)

With his deadpan questioning, eye for taboo topics and knack for letting uneasy silences linger just a beat too long, Louis Theroux has been British TV’s patron saint of discomfort since the Nineties. But now it seems that the broadcaster is fighting for the right to keep making television that leaves us feeling awkward and unsettled.

Delivering the annual MacTaggart keynote speech at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Wednesday, the documentary-maker argued that an “atmosphere of anxiety” has pervaded corporations like the BBC in recent years. Concerned about “giving offence” by spotlighting difficult subject matter, commissioners are playing it safe, he claimed. The end result of this squeamishness around tricky material is, as Theroux says, “less confident, less morally complex filmmaking”. And we’re all the worse off for that lack. You only need a quick glance at his own back catalogue to see he has a point.

Theroux made his name tackling weighty, controversial subjects like neo-Nazism, paedophilia and the hate group Westboro Baptist Church. His famous interview style is all about faux-naivety, asking disarmingly straightforward questions that then give his subjects the chance to dig their own holes. Think of the time he watched innocently as boxer Chris Eubank blustered through an apparently simple question about whether he drinks alcohol. Or when he looked on as an American reverend began attempting to channel the spirit of his alien friend Korton. Or the more sinister scene in which he confronted Max Clifford with evidence of a PR set-up. Crucially, he gives us viewers the chance to make up our own minds about what we’re seeing and hearing on screen. We have to do some of the work for ourselves, delving into moral grey areas, because the presenter hasn’t spelt out his judgements for us.