It’s a mere eight years since The Grand Tour (Prime Video, Friday) began with Jeremy Clarkson driving across the Mojave Desert in California, accompanied by the Breitling Jet Team and with the Hothouse Flowers, of all people, on hand as the house band.
A lot has happened in the intervening near-decade. Clarkson has had several close calls with cancellation – most notoriously following his disgraceful column about Meghan Markle – while his old show, Top Gear, is on hiatus following an accident involving new presenter Andrew Flintoff.
But as Top Gear hangs about in television purgatory, The Grand Tour has gone one further and is motoring into the great beyond with its feature-length last ever instalment, One For The Road. It brings to an end a lifetime of internal combustion engine-based adventures by Clarkson and his co-hosts, Richard Hammond and James May.
Their brand of television is Marmite on wheels, and some will cheer their departure. Fans will, of course, have a different perspective and for them this farewell episode – in which Clarkson, Hammond and May cross Zimbabwe in vintage autos – is a fair-to-middling affair. There is lots to like, but occasions, too, when the trio appear to be going through the motions.
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As send-offs go, it is more than passable – May and Hammond are emotional about exiting (Clarkson says he is but doesn’t sound it). They start in the Far East of Zimbabwe, where they have brought along three dream autos. Clarkson has a Lancia, Hammond a Ford Capri (the regulation banana-yellow hue, albeit with a black bonnet) and May a Triumph Stag. The adventure then proceeds in the traditional fashion. Hammond’s Capri breaks down repeatedly, his two companions shoot off ahead and are enjoying a relaxing beer when he finally rounds the bend. It’s bloke telly on cruise control.
One For the Road has its moments – not all of them positive. Clarkson compares the interior of his car to “Calcutta”, earning jokey a reprimand from May. But there is no point in registering disapproval, as they’ve already pointed out. “Call us by all means to complain,” says Clarkson. “You’ll get a recorded message to say we’re not interested your call. Dial 1800 – Bugger Off!”
Still, it isn’t all negative. The landscape is stunning – for some reason, Clarkson thinks mountainous Zimbabwe looks like Ireland (it is green and bumpy). And fans of the three going back to Top Gear (TG) will have a lump in their throat as the gang drive into Botswana and recall their first TG international special, filmed on the same salt-flats in 2007.
Why are they giving it up? Clarkson (64) says he’s too old – though the success of his other Prime Video outing, Clarkson’s Farm, is surely a factor. Plus, as he acknowledges, times have changed and cars aren’t what they once were.
“There are lots of reasons why we’re jacking this show in,” he says. “For me, one of the main ones is I’m simply not interested in electric cars. They are just white goods, washing machines, microwave ovens. You can’t review those, you can’t enjoy them. They are just ****.”
The Grand Tour could probably have rumbled on a few more years. But just like the electric cars Clarkson despises, its batteries were ailing and, at the end of this thoroughly okay-ish instalment, it’s hard not to conclude that its race is run. As the end credits roll the only remaining questions are whether that’s that for car-based telly and if Clarkson should have invited Hothouse Flowers back to play him off.
