Amid Mad Max-style road wars and flaming rally cars, KILIAN DOYLEmeets the Top Gear team in Birmingham
TO GREAT fanfare, Top Gearreturned to BBC2 last weekend for a 14th season in its current smash-hit incarnation. Fronted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, the show is a global phenomenon. With an audience of zillions across 100 countries, it enjoys the dubious honour of being the most illegally downloaded TV show on the planet. What's more, this year's Top Gear Live tour will play to 350,000 people in six countries across three continents.
The show's success is a bit of a mystery, even to the presenters. "It's three rather annoying blokes - who don't really like each other, let's be honest. It baffles me," May told the Irish Times.
Perhaps, he muses in his trademark self-deprecating manner, people love watching the presenters making idiots of themselves in dangerous situations so they don't have to do it themselves. It's a vicarious pleasure for the masses. "Top Gear is a sort of conduit for other people's concerns and frustrations that we work out on their behalf. It's a service to the people."
Hammond insists their onscreen personalities are not manufactured. "We're not a boy band. Looking at us, you've probably have gathered that," he says. "We are who we are."
Clarkson is undeniably the show's big draw. As the most outspoken and opinionated man in Britain, he is loved by millions and loathed by millions more. But he cares not a whit for his detractors and merrily admits he has the best job in the world. "It just has the one drawback, obviously," he says. "Working with James is deeply unpleasant. You have to double-lock your hotel room at night."
Ah, that hoary old chestnut. The constant "gay" jibes at the heterosexual May. Hammond dismisses it as "playground humour", while May laughs it off. "They're just jealous."
Their politically incorrect sniping at each other is part of the charm, even when it's merciless. When Hammond returned to the show after months recuperating from the rocket-powered car crash that almost killed him, Clarkson handed him a tissue in case he started "dribbling".
Whatever Clarkson's foibles, he knows how to work a crowd. Watching him at the Top GearLive show in Birmingham last week - his persona a mixture of rock star, drill sergeant and sadistic school head boy - it's no wonder there was a concerted clarion to have him made prime minister. He has 4,000 people eating out of his hand.
Although May and Hammond do their best to stand up to their bullying tormentor, there is no democracy when he is around. Top GearLive, which arrives in Dublin for a four-day run in the RDS next month, is his baby. He is, as executive producer Rowland French freely admits, the "engine room" of the show. "He has a massive influence over every aspect," he says.
French promises the show will blow last year's event - which got mixed reviews - out of the water. It features flaming rally cars, Mad Max-style road wars, precision driving displays, a loop-the-loop in a dune buggy, a procession of hypercars and "fire dancer" Naomi Lynch - sister of Boyzone's Shane - dancing in tiny hotpants. Not to mention enough explosives to flatten Athlone. It all sounds very blokey. Is it just a man creche for boys of all ages?
"The Top GearTV show has a huge female audience, roughly 48 per cent. It doesn't play to either gender and I think Top Gear Live takes that spirit across," says French. "We don't make a show for blokes, we make a show for people. So if you enjoy stunts, theatre, music, lasers, smoke, lights and production values then you'll enjoy it."
Does he worry Top Gearis setting a bad example to children, that they'll go out and try to recreate the flaming rally car race, for example? "No, those cars on fire are really, really expensive, so I'd be amazed if an eight- or nine-year-old could gather together enough money to buy one," he says, his tongue threatening to pop through his cheek.
All this smoke and fury must come at an environmental cost but French insists they'll never bend to pressure from the eco-lobby. "I like to think we provide a little oasis of fiery silliness and the rest of the year round, people can worry about their carbon footprint," he says with a mischievous grin.
Finally, the question everyone wants answered. Who, out of the three is the best driver? "They're all terrible. While they are awful in different ways, they are all rubbish."
