Louis Theroux first came to the nation’s attention in 1999 with the broadcasting of Weird Weekends on BBC2. The documentary series followed his travels to North America, South Africa and Thailand in search of the offbeat proponents of unusual subcultures.

"It's always been a fascination of mine. I like people who are a bit different. People who have a sense of what their beliefs are and a confidence in those beliefs.

"The same weirdness of belief exists [in England], proportionally there must be as many unusual people, but there's two things - one is that we have a culture of self-conscienceness and reserve. We are careful and wary of being judged. Two, because there is less space here, we don't have thousands of miles of desert in the West Country where we can secede from the British government."

Now Theroux has written his first book, The Call of the Weird, in which he returns to the United States to catch up with ‘ten of the most intriguing ex-interviewees’ from Weird Weekends, including the UFO fanatics, porn stars, white supremacists and survivalists, he first filmed as far back as 1996.

"They were in jobs or spheres of life that had some sort of risk. To my definition: weird, which is why I interviewed them in the first place. I was curious as to how their lives had developed. Whether they were still doing the same thing and whether they had moved on. To explore the nature of the relationship [I had with the subjects] and also to take a break from TV.

"I always wanted to write a book and with a book I think you can get closer to the story. Journalism is about moving on, but the strangeness for me was going back to a previous subject."

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