Jeremy Clarkson doesn’t think a show like ‘Top Gear’ would get commissioned these days.
The 64-year-old broadcaster – who fronted the BBC motoring show from 2002 to 2015 before launching a similar series, ‘The Grand Tour’, on Prime Video in 2016 – doesn’t believe that he and co-hosts Jamey May and Richard Hammond would have the same appeal to executives now and feels lucky that they have enjoyed the run for as long as they have.
He reflected to The Sun newspaper: “It wouldn’t get commissioned now in a million years. Monkey tennis would be more likely to be commissioned than this, I think.”
“It would be so difficult – three middle-aged, middle-class guys, driving cars around in other countries, I think they’d probably say no.
“Fortunately, our Top Gear grew out of something else. I started in 2002, doing originally just with Hammond, and then May came along in the second season of the series.
“Then Hammond had his accident and then a lot of people started watching the show and it grew some more and then we accidentally did a special in America.
“But you couldn’t get it commissioned from the get-go now.”
The trio are set to end ‘The Grand Tour’ with new special ‘One For The Road’ but if the show is to continue without them, Jeremy has urged producers to hire new faces with a true passion for cars and commitment to the programme.
He said: “My advice to Amazon would be – and I’ve given this to them already – for heaven’s sake, do not get well known people who ‘like’ cars.”
“Because when you do that show it has to be your life. No, you can’t open supermarkets.
“No, you can’t appear on another show. If you’re not actually filming, you’re thinking about what the next thing is that you’re going to film. It has to be all consuming.
“But there’s no point hiring, you know, somebody who ‘likes’ cars. Because that’s not enough. I would get three complete unknowns. Start small, like we did. They’ve got to be absolute petrolheads.
“I’ve got to be able to show them a picture of a quarter of a door mirror from any car ever made, and they’ve got to know what it is.
“I’d go to motoring journalists. James, Richard and I are all motoring journalists.
“That would be my advice if you want to continue with it, and I would hope that Amazon do continue with it.”
After leaving ‘Top Gear’, the likes of actor Matt LeBlanc, DJ Chris Evans, comedian Paddy McGuinness and cricketer Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff presented the show before it was shelved after the former sportsman was involved in a horror crash.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
