From dropping LSD at award shows to coughing up blood on the office carpet – the rise and fall of James Brown’s oft-sexist lads magazine empire goes under the microscope

James Brown, erstwhile founding editor of a magazine that revolutionised the marketplace back when the magazine marketplace was a force to be reckoned with, looks like a shadow of his former enfant terrible self. He moves gingerly, speaks softly, is on steroids, he tells us, and feels ill. The double hearing aids he wears are visible now that the famous mop of curls is shorn. The cockiness that helped make his name is far less apparent. As a presence, he seems much more engaging than he did in his heyday. You suspect this is no comfort.

Still, he is the reason we’re watching Loaded: Lads, Mags and Mayhem, a 90-minute documentary telling the story of how he and a group of other hedonists with a gonzo gift “committed”, as Brown puts it at the start of the show, “the heinous crime of getting men to read magazines en masse”.