Louis Theroux

You handle a heckler by getting the drunk heckler to get on stage and then you're made to be in the wrong and you're like, the audiences are dwindling for obscure reasons.

You put Avalon out there.

You're quite careful not to name them in the book.

You make them sound pretty horrendous.

Christmas parties with dwarves running around... ...carrying drinks on their heads or something.

And then it follows you through your famous Jerry Springer, award-winning Jerry Springer, the opera.

It won an Olivier, it was going to transfer to Broadway, it was derailed by an orchestrated, but I think nonetheless sincere campaign by Christian evangelists who found it deeply offensive.

You appreciated it.

The issue for them was that Jesus is depicted in a cheeky way in the...

That was Stephen Green's outfit?

So when it transferred, it showed on BBC, right?

It was the most complained about transmission in history?

It was 50,000.

It almost felt imitative.

Like, at the time, it was a bit like, well, if radical Islam can go around mixing things up, intimidating people, we're going to show them what we can do.

But not the economy of offence.

So... Is this the sort of thing you talk about normally?

I talk about anything.

How are you talking about personal stuff?

Well...