TV presenter and one-time petrolhead plutocrat Jeremy Clarkson has been cancelled more times than Taylor Swift has written a song about an ex-boyfriend, but he always bounces back. The most recent outrage concerned disgraceful comments about Meghan Markle made in a Sun newspaper opinion column – and for once, it did seem like the game might truly be over. But it wasn’t, and here he is, once again astride his Lamborghini tractor for another season of his post-Top Gear reality series Clarkson’s Farm (Prime Video, Friday).
Top Gear was all about speed – so it’s paradoxical that the enjoyable Clarkson’s Farm should be the opposite. This is slow TV with the handbrake on and the engine idling and, in its third season, it showcases a cuddlier side to Clarkson.
Farming is tough nowadays – even for millionaire dabblers bankrolled by Jeff Bezos. Clarkson discovers this when the local council forces him to close his cafe at Diddley Squat Farm in the Cotswolds, which in turn (and for reasons never made entirely clear) requires him to get rid of a herd of cows.
“What happens to them?” he inquires of the livestock as they are led off. “Best not to ask,” says the man taking them away. He and his partner, Dublin businesswoman Lisa Hogan (related, through her stepfather, to the founders of the Peter Mark hairdressing empire), turn misty-eyed as the cattle disappear over the hill to their mysterious fate. Top Gear fans will be shocked. You’d never see Clarkson wiping away a tear over a McLaren GTS.
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With last orders called on the caf, Clarkson needs to find a new way to turn a penny. One plan involves raising pigs – which goes well until he and Hogan are required to hand-feed a piglet. Can they really pack their darling off to be turned into sausages? He tries to be logical about it. “All farmers love their animals, and then they kill them.”
He also comes up with the whizz-bang idea of making blackberry jam – though the project suffers a wobble when an attempt to harvest berries results in the demolition of a wall.
Watching all this in stunned amusement is his assistant Kaleb Cooper, who has become a cult hero by dint of his ability to crack up at Clarkson’s jokes while driving a tractor. But if Cooper and deadpan land agent Charlie Ireland – invariably the only adult in the room – are amiable company, there’s no getting around how contrived the entire thing is. No matter how often Clarkson grumbles about the challenges of running a farm we all know he’s minted so there is no sense of genuine financial jeopardy. It’s all gentlemanly lark.
For Irish viewers, there is also the uncanny valley factor. Though Diddley Squat and environs don’t look all that different from the Irish countryside, the dynamic is entirely different. In the UK, the countryside is the realm of poshos, while in Ireland, it is where ordinary people generally live. Seeing Clarkson pottering around twisting lanes or gazing at hedgerows, you have to keep reminding yourself of the specifically British context of muck meaning money.
Nobody sits down to Clarkson’s Farm for drama (and plenty do binge: it’s Prime Video’s biggest hit in the UK). The draw is the pleasure of watching Clarkson bumble about in the countryside pretending to be useless. It’s a niche interest, for sure. But if Jeremy Clarkson looking flummoxed in wellies is your jam, then series three will bring plenty of muddy delights.
