I talked to comedian Dom Joly about why he is obsessed by conspiracy theories

Best known for his multi-award winning, global smash hit comedy series Trigger Happy TV, Dom Joly is now investigating conspiracy theories. Catherine Scott meets him.

Writer and comedian Dom Joly might fill venues with his live show and his Trigger Happy TV, but he says he’s never told a joke in his life and that travel writing is his first love. “I never was a stand up or anything so I’ve only really started doing tours in the last four years. What happens is I write one of my travel books and then take it on tour,” explains Joly, who has visited more than 100 countries in his travels.

"My travel books are always about something. In my first one, The Dark Tourist, I went to places that people don’t normally go to on holiday. I visit South Korea, weekended in Chernobyl and went skiing in Iran.” Other travel books have included Scary Monsters and Super Creeps – where he went monster hunting, The Downhill Hiking Club: A Short Walk Across the Lebanon and Such Miserable Weather: An English Staycation.

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His latest book The Conspiracy Tourist, saw him travelling the world hanging out with conspiracy theorists. "I felt that conspiracies used to be something that were really quite funny and eccentric – a bit of a laugh – and then suddenly around when Trump came in they became really quite dangerous and insidious. All that false stuff online, like that which which promoted the recent UK riots is very dangerous, it is increasingly difficult to tell what is the truth and what isn’t.” During lockdown he spent a lot of time online arguing with people about all sorts of things from Covid to flat earth.

Dom Joly pictured in front of a map of the world.   Dom Joly/PA.Dom Joly pictured in front of a map of the world.   Dom Joly/PA.
Dom Joly pictured in front of a map of the world. Dom Joly/PA.

"I was thinking are they doing this for clicks or because they genuinely believe it and it gave me the idea once we were out of lockdown to travel the world and hang out with some of these people and see why they were into it and if the genuinely believe it. But the book is essentially a funny travel book and an excuse to go to places and write about then in an amusing way, but looking at conspiracies. The tour is taking people through what i got up to in my book and a more general look at conspiracies.”

So what is the wildest conspiracy he has come across? “I kick off with one that says ‘Does Finland exist? The conspiracy is that in 1917 Russia and Japan conspired to invent a country called Finland so that they could have the fishing rights. I thought this’ll be easy I'll just land in Finland and that will be that – but it ended up being more of an intellectual exercise about how difficult it is to argue or debunk a conspiracy. If you are a conspiracy theorist you will argue that I landed in Russia not Helsinki and that the Fins I met were actors. That was very strange.

"They are inherently funny but also quite tragic and at times dangerous – there’s an almost cult-like element to it. As humans we don’t like chaos and so living in the uncertain times we are living in are the perfect time for conspiracies to thrive. What I hate about conspiracy theorists is that they start with the premise that everyone is up to no good and that everyone is bad and despite being an ex- Goth I am an optimist and think most people are inherently good.

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“I’m an optimist – my next book is about the search for happiness and I can’t wait.”

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Born in Beirut to British parents, Joly grew up in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War, his school holidays marked by near-constant shelling and the very real risk of kidnap. Term-time was even worse, as he was packed off aged seven to an English boarding school. “When you’re sent to boarding school, you’re taught to repress everything,” he says, and with parents he describes as from the “pull-your-socks-up brigade”, Joly suffered panic attacks for years after. He developed a dark, deadpan sense of humour – a common coping mechanism in trouble spots – and spent his teenage years as a goth. “I still love sad music,” he says, “and I’m very comfortable in melancholy.” For all its difficulties, Lebanon moulded Joly, and he grew up idolising foreign correspondents. “I was always destined to travel,” he says, “and comedy just sort of got in the way.”

After going to university in London studying languages, Joly spent stints as a diplomat for the European Commission in Prague and a reporter for ITN, before he was approached in 1997 at the height of ‘Cool Britannia’ by Paramount Comedy Channel.

"I have an odd skill for acting up in public,” he says. “They just wanted me to go and do funny things so we followed Peter Mandelson around, as he was ‘the dark lord of spin’, with an underworld fan club of Frankenstein and a vampire saying ‘we love you Peter’. The first thing we did was when he got out of a car surrounded him and it made front page of the Guardian.

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"I did that for a year, doing lots of satirical political comedy and Channel 4 saw it and approached me and said they’d like me to make a show for them – it was the luckiest break ever. They didn’t want a political satirical show they just wanted it to be funny which just liberated me. “ Trigger Happy TV sent his stock skyrocketing. Suddenly, he was ‘comedian Dom Joly’, known across the nation for his surreal humour. “The only rule on Trigger Happy was does it make you laugh?” Success really did come overnight. After the first episode aired, Joly was on a train when he heard a familiar ringtone, and someone down the carriage stood up and started bellowing theatrically into their handset. Cue gales of laughter, and by the journey’s end it had happened twice more. No one realised he was there, but Joly realised that he had, in fact, made it. “Trigger Happy was an absolute labour of love,” says Joly who lives in the Cotswolds with his wife and two children when not travelling. “I think in the snob’s mind, hidden camera is the lowest form of comedy, but when done well it can be amazing and I’m unbelievably proud of it. I think I’m a smart guy doing a stupid genre.” Trigger Happy ended after two seasons (“I knocked it on the head too early – never make a decision just as you finish something” although he might well bring it back in some format for the 25th anniversary), and Joly could finally indulge his globetrotting full-time moving to the BBC after being offered ‘a big deal’. "The BBC and I didn’t get on,” says Joly. He also struggled with the fame that came with is success. “I found it caused me a lot of anxiety. I much preferred being the underdog.” But he admits that fame did open doors for him and columns in the Sunday Times and books followed. “If you’d asked me as a kid what I wanted to do I would say a travel writer and that’s what I’ve become.”

He says, despite his anxiety he loves touring the live shows. "I’m very good an improv, even though I hate that word, I’m good at riffing off things and I love that. But I am still learning.”

Dom Joly The Conspiracy Tour where he is joined by conspiracy theorists Dr Julian Northcote will be at Ilkley Kings Hall October 22, Scarborough Stephen Joseph Theatre October, 25, Barnsley Civic October 26, Doncaster Cast October 29. www.domjoly.tv/dom-joly-tour/

Dom Joly’s The Conspiracy Tourist: Travels Through a Strange World is out now (£22, Robinson).

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