Louis Theroux to get up close and personal with Dame Judi Dench and Rita Ora

The award-winning documentary maker is returning to screens with a new interview series.
Louis Theroux is set to get up close and personal with stars of in new documentary series (BBC/Mindhouse Productions/Dan Dewsbury/PA)
Connie Evans28 September 2022
The Weekender

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Louis Theroux is set to get up close and personal with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry, including Dame Judi Dench, Rita Ora and Stormzy.

The Bafta award-winning documentary-maker will return to screens with his latest project for BBC Two, Louis Theroux Interviews.

In the show, 52-year-old Theroux will go behind the scenes with a variety of famous faces to explore each of their lives and careers in personal and intimate settings.

Theroux will meet 87-year-old star of the stage and screen Dame Judi in her countryside home and is invited on stage in the West End.

TV adventurer Bear Grylls takes Theroux by boat to his remote island off the coast of North Wales and gives him an access all areas pass to his adventure family festival.

Theroux will also sit down with British singer-songwriter Ora, 31, at her father’s London pub and joins her as she performs live in Albania.

Elsewhere in the music world, Theroux will meet Yungblud – whose real name is Dominic Harrison – as he is taken to meet Yungblud’s family in Doncaster and his fans whilst on tour in the LA.

Theroux also accompanies comedian, actor and writer Katherine Ryan on her latest stand-up comedy tour.

Earlier this year, it was announced that Theroux will be given exclusive access to Brit award winner Stormzy as the rapper opens his life up to Theroux.

In the first episode of the series, viewers will be allowed into the comfort of Stormzy’s living room, as well as the recording studio, his biggest tour to date and at his local worship group.

Clare Sillery, head of commissioning documentaries at the BBC, said Theroux’s show will offer “uniquely intimate access to some of the biggest stars of the British entertainment industry”.

Elsewhere on the BBC, a film following the life of the late fashion designer Virgil Abloh will air on BBC Three.

Abloh, who died in 2021 at the age of 41 after receiving treatment for cancer, began his career working with Kanye West as the creative director of Donda, West’s creative agency.

He later went on launch his own fashion label, Off-White, in 2013 and became the artistic director of menswear at French luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton.

The film is set to explore “the story of how and why Abloh was able to succeed where West couldn’t and how in that process he liberated a whole generation”.

Returning to screens later this year is global competition series Race Across The World, which will air on BBC One for the first time after its success on BBC Two.

The third series of the programme will see five pairs of competitive travellers race across North America.

Starting out at the very edge of the Pacific Ocean in Vancouver, the teams will travel over 9,900 miles across six time zones to the finish line perched on the Atlantic coast and North America’s most easterly city, St John’s Newfoundland.

A celebrity version of the show is also set to go into production later in the year, with the pairings to be announced in due course.

The BBC has also announced that Stacey Solomon will be returning to screens for a third series of Sort Your Life Out, as well as a Christmas crafting special in which she will share her tips on how to have a magical, yet budget-friendly, Christmas.

In Agatha Christie: Mystery Queen British historian, Lucy Worsley will take a look at one of the most successful novelists of all time while historian Simon Schama will look back at the dramatic history that has played out in his lifetime in Simon Schama’s History of Now.

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