John Wilson: The sly genius whose documentaries make Louis Theroux look amateur

His video encounters with 'everyday oddballs' on the streets of New York are funny, compelling - and deeply human. He explains how they evolved from a fascination with complicated emotionsNick Duerden is a writer and journalist. His books include Get Well Soon, A Life Less Lonely and The Smallest Things.

His digressions are endless. When addressing his own lack of fitness and a desire to beef up at a nearby gym, he instead attends a Giant Pumpkin contest, in which the competitors are invariably male because, as he points out, of “the masculine urge to grow”., a 75-year-old interviewee unexpectedly confesses that, as a much younger man desperate to stem his sexual urges, he hacked off his own testicles with a razor blade.

In this way, a show ostensibly about everyday oddballs actually reveals itself to be intensely sensitive and innately human. All of us, Wilson conveys, no matter how idiosyncratic, crave connection and common ground, whether through a shared love of vintage vacuum cleaners or energy drinks that come in bright and vivid colours. And though his interview style can make him seem like an oddball himself, there’s a fierce intellect at work.

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