A few minutes ago, Top Gear’s actual car expert, Chris Harris, raced me at top speed around the Dunsfold Aerodrome, in Surrey, in a Mercedes AMG E63. This sequence of words meant nothing to me, but he helpfully explained that, despite its family friendly appearance, the car had “a whole heap of mayhem” under the bonnet. “It’s about as fast as a McLaren in a straight line but you can get your labrador in the back,” he said. As we rounded “the famous Hammerhead” turn, I felt, for a moment, quite Top Gear.
Now we have been joined by Harris’s new co-presenters, Freddie Flintoff and Paddy McGuinness, for an “interview lap” at a more sedate pace. The idea behind the day was to give a few chairbound TV hacks a taste of what it’s like to be a part of the world’s most famous motoring series, but instead it feels symbolic of the challenges facing the new series: three light entertainers attempting a little humour during a cautious lap of a famous track.
“You don’t often see chocolate leather,” says McGuinness, as he hops in, admiring the car’s upholstery. “It looks like one of your jackets, Chris.”
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“I am a paradigm of great dress sense compared to you,” replies Harris. “You had studs on your trainers.”
“Can we please get through one interview without you talking about your clothes?”
“It’s brutal. Proper banter,” Harris says. “For the first time in a long while, I get dressed in the morning thinking about what they’ll say. About what I’m wearing, about how spotty my face is. It starts with appearance then moves onto everything else. You’ll pick up a cup of tea the wrong way, or talk the wrong way. [The banter] is absolutely ceaseless.”
The old criticism of Top Gear was that it was a dinosaur: three white men talking about cars, interspersed banter and racism, dad jokes and granddad jokes. Now it must contend with the worst accusation of all: that it is simply unfunny. Since Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May left in 2015, pushed by Clarkson’s sacking and pulled by Amazon Prime’s largesse, none of the hordes of presenters they’ve tried – Chris Evans, Matt LeBlanc, Rory Reid, Sabine Schmitz, Eddie Jordan – have clicked like the Big Three. Evans came under the heaviest fire. The finale of his first season was watched by just 1.9 million, compared to the final Clarkson-era figure of 5.8 million.
When the new cast was announced, the consensus was cautious optimism. “These two are great hires to the brand,“ says Harris, “they bring a lot of love and great following. There’s no less serious thing than making TV, knocking about in cars. We’re trying to add a bit of levity to Sunday night, not fixing cancer.
1/26 Killing Eve
“As the series develops, it’s clearer than ever that Eve and Villanelle are more similar than they are different. Villanelle’s new vulnerability invites us to question what it is exactly she wants from Polastri. First time around she was toying with a more worthy adversary, but why now? Polastri, by contrast, is frayed around the edges, a terrible wife to her husband Nico (Owen McDonnell) and an even worse intelligence agent to her boss Carolyn Martens (Fiona Shaw). The script is still tight and the jokes are still there, as are Villanelle’s accents, outfits and abrupt killings, but without the will-they/won’t-they energy of the initial plot, it is harder to care.”
BBC/BBC America
2/26 Years and Years
“Years and Years, then, is favoured by some wit, a cornucopia of fab talent and promising characters. The dominant one as we continue our quest into the 2030s and beyond, will be Vivienne, or Viv, Rook, played brilliantly by Emma Thompson. As a bit of a long-term Emma-sceptic I was actually startled by how good she is in the role of the epitome of everything she has spent her life hating and campaigning against, for Viv is a horrifically nasty businessperson turned populist politician with the most terrifying of views. Viv Rook makes Ann Widdecombe look like, well, Emma Thompson at an Extinction Rebellion sit-in.”
BBC
3/26 The Virtues
“Joseph is almost never out of shot, whether seen from afar, contemplating a bottle of strong cider in a playground, or in visceral close-up, clutching his doner to his face. There are few actors you could trust with so much screen time, especially with such a pared back and naturalistic script. The fact any of it is remotely watchable is testament to Stephen Graham’s abilities. No man working in Britain today can drink a pint with more pathos.”
Dean Rogers/Channel 4
4/26 Good Omens
‘Good Omens is a hugely enjoyable, imaginative premiere, as close to Pratchett’s vision as anyone could have dared dream. And while the melancholy tone may not be for everyone, fans of the book will surely be sated.’
Amazon Prime
5/26 Line of Duty (BBC)
“Plausibility is a spectrum; Bodyguard became ridiculous but Line of Duty stays just the right side, and as usual there is more plot in an hour than in whole series of other programmes. As well as being gripping entertainment, Line of Duty has become an effective examination of the relationship between the state and the individual. The shadowy government forces are elected; the organised crime gangs are fuelled by the drug trade. The police are there to save us from ourselves but can only do it if they are subjected to constant scrutiny. It’s exhausting work, policing the police.”
BBC
6/26 Our Planet (Netflix)
“The footage is glorious, especially the side-on tracking shots of the birds and the hunting, where it is as if the cameramen were able to set up a rail along the ocean. Most spectacular of all is the sequence of a glacier collapsing into the ocean, where 75m tons of ice being sloughed off in less than 20-minutes. But at times Our Planet feels a little unfocused. Attenborough’s last big BBC series, Dynasties, won almost unbearable amount of emotional resonance through its focus on animal families. Our Planet is more of a greatest-hits parade, with overblown orchestral soundtrack and ponderous intonation. You can’t buy love, even if you pay for David Attenborough.”
Netflix
7/26 Road to Brexit (BBC)
“The Road to Brexit is easily the best thing to emerge from the whole brexit imbroglio. OK, not much competition, but still… Despite the po-faced title, you realise very quickly that it’s not yet another drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch or yet another attempt by Laura Kuenssberg to explain the inexplicable, or yet another show with the public arguing about stuff they don’t understand. Rather, it’s a very clever, very funny, very ‘different’ parcel of bollocks to Brexit.”
BBC
8/26 Fleabag (BBC)
“While there are plenty of well-turned one-liners, the deeper attraction of Fleabag is schadenfreude. The character is as old as Daisy Buchanan or Lydia Bennett or Scarlett O’Hara. The best compliment to Waller-Bridge and her cast is that they find fresh clothes in which to dress these ancient monsters.”
BBC/Two Brothers/Luke Varley
9/26 Derry Girls (Channel 4)
“It is sometimes remarked that the Troubles in Northern Ireland make for an unpromising backdrop for a sitcom about adolescent kids. Well, yer man’s wrong, as they might say. Derry Girls, returning for a triumphant and exuberant second run, proves that humour, dark or otherwise, can be quarried from even the most unlikely of locations.”
Peter Marley
10/26 The Murder of Jill Dando (BBC)
“A tremendously sad, strange story then, and just as unfathomable today. Dando’s friends, family and the producer and director of the film have made a fitting and balanced tribute to her, something she deserves. I can’t really add anything to that.”
PA
11/26 Home (Channel 4)
“Home is a rather gentle, unobtrusive variation on the sitcom theme – but one that is built on a quite a bizarre premise. The twist is that a family who returns to Surrey from a holiday touring around France discover a Syrian refugee stuffed in the back of their SUV. Not only that, but, after a few moments of blind terrified panic about a suicide bombing, they eventually adopt him like he’s stray cat that’s just wandered in.”
Channel 4
12/26 Leaving Neverland (Channel 4)
“Michael Jackson has long looked like a burning tire yard. There were the allegations, the out-of-court settlements, the arrest, the trial and not-guilty verdict. But there has been nothing like Leaving Neverland”
AFP/Getty
13/26 This Time with Alan Partridge* (BBC1)
“This Time with Alan Partridge is such a consistently strong creative achievement that fears for the future of Alan Gordon Partridge, may, once again, be allayed. Or Alayned, perhaps.”
BBC
14/26 Shetland (BBC1)
“Like all the best detective dramas, Shetland engages the audience in the very process of detection. That way we grow intrigued, and we care. And so we find ourselves sitting next to Henshall in his (prominently featured) Volvo V70 estate, sharing his thoughts, intercepting suspects and being driven off the road by unidentified enemies.”
BBC/ITV Studios
15/26 The Umbrella Academy (Netflix)
“It is both a revisionist – and frequently batty – take on the caped milieu and a winningly knotty mystery. And it surely is the first big-budget superhero tale more indebted to Wes Anderson than to Stan Lee.”
Netflix
16/26 Baptiste (BBC1)
“Yet again the Williams have woven a brilliantly tangled web, helped in no small part by Karyo’s quietly arresting central turn”
PA
17/26 Catastrophe (Channel 4)
“There’s really been nothing quite like Catastrophe on our screens before, and it deserves its cult status for the quality of everything the production team do, not least the stunning cinematography in this finale. Thanks, all. I’m glad Catastrophe died happy.”
Channel 4
18/26 Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil (BBC2)
“For anyone who’s not altogether sure how British politics turned so suddenly into a rolling dumpster fire from which all exits are blocked then Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil is a necessary public service to explain exactly, and exactly how needlessly, we all came to be here.”
BBC/European Council Newsroom
19/26 Les Misérables (BBC1)
“West believes Valjean to be “the greatest hero in all literature”, and he plays the part with all the care and intricacy such a character deserves.”
BBC/Lookout Point/Laurence Cendrowicz
20/26 Danny Dyer’s Right Royal Family (BBC)
“You see, saint or sinner, prince or pauper, we are all part of one race, the brotherhood of man. And the saintly and regal Danny Dyer stands as its finest ambassador.”
BBC
21/26 The Secret Life of the Zoo (Channel 4)
“This documentary goes behind the shrubbery to show off these animals and their guardians. The humans are a pretty exotic bunch too, judging by some of the lines they come out with.”
Channel 4
22/26 A Year of British Murder (Channel 4)
“The programme-makers must have done much to win the confidence of so many friends and families, as they went through unspeakable personal pain; but they repay that confidence with an understated and powerful film.”
Channel 4
23/26 Brexit: The Uncivil War (Sky Atlantic)
“Despite what some feared, the casting of Cumberbatch doesn’t simply flatter Cummings – the A-lister is too good a chameleon for that. But, inevitably, as he scrawls out his campaigning brainwaves on a whiteboard, there is a touch of that deductive maverick Sherlock in his portrayal of this scruffy, balding political saboteur.”
Nick Wall
24/26 The Paras: Men of War (ITV)
“From the outset the production is elevated by its sensitive handling of the men – and the Paratroopers remain exclusively male – involved. These kinds of programmes have a tendency to fetishise toughness, lingering on assault courses and weaponry.”
Jonny Ashton/ITV
25/26 Billy Connolly: Made in Scotland (BBC2)
“Billy Connolly: Made in Scotland is a meandering look back over his life, career, and national identity – a “Proustian wander through Scotland”. There’s a lot of mordant chat about the weather, illustrated with shots of dark grey clouds above even darker grey lochs.”
BBC/7Wonder/Jaimie Gramston
26/26 Doctor Who – New Year’s Day special (BBC1)
“As a slightly cheesy reminder of what we love about Doctor Who – i.e. the fact it gives us an intergalactic eccentric in a big flappy overcoat shouting at Daleks – this is a New Year treat that more than delivers”
BBC
1/26 Killing Eve
“As the series develops, it’s clearer than ever that Eve and Villanelle are more similar than they are different. Villanelle’s new vulnerability invites us to question what it is exactly she wants from Polastri. First time around she was toying with a more worthy adversary, but why now? Polastri, by contrast, is frayed around the edges, a terrible wife to her husband Nico (Owen McDonnell) and an even worse intelligence agent to her boss Carolyn Martens (Fiona Shaw). The script is still tight and the jokes are still there, as are Villanelle’s accents, outfits and abrupt killings, but without the will-they/won’t-they energy of the initial plot, it is harder to care.”
BBC/BBC America
2/26 Years and Years
“Years and Years, then, is favoured by some wit, a cornucopia of fab talent and promising characters. The dominant one as we continue our quest into the 2030s and beyond, will be Vivienne, or Viv, Rook, played brilliantly by Emma Thompson. As a bit of a long-term Emma-sceptic I was actually startled by how good she is in the role of the epitome of everything she has spent her life hating and campaigning against, for Viv is a horrifically nasty businessperson turned populist politician with the most terrifying of views. Viv Rook makes Ann Widdecombe look like, well, Emma Thompson at an Extinction Rebellion sit-in.”
BBC
3/26 The Virtues
“Joseph is almost never out of shot, whether seen from afar, contemplating a bottle of strong cider in a playground, or in visceral close-up, clutching his doner to his face. There are few actors you could trust with so much screen time, especially with such a pared back and naturalistic script. The fact any of it is remotely watchable is testament to Stephen Graham’s abilities. No man working in Britain today can drink a pint with more pathos.”
Dean Rogers/Channel 4
4/26 Good Omens
‘Good Omens is a hugely enjoyable, imaginative premiere, as close to Pratchett’s vision as anyone could have dared dream. And while the melancholy tone may not be for everyone, fans of the book will surely be sated.’
Amazon Prime
5/26 Line of Duty (BBC)
“Plausibility is a spectrum; Bodyguard became ridiculous but Line of Duty stays just the right side, and as usual there is more plot in an hour than in whole series of other programmes. As well as being gripping entertainment, Line of Duty has become an effective examination of the relationship between the state and the individual. The shadowy government forces are elected; the organised crime gangs are fuelled by the drug trade. The police are there to save us from ourselves but can only do it if they are subjected to constant scrutiny. It’s exhausting work, policing the police.”
BBC
6/26 Our Planet (Netflix)
“The footage is glorious, especially the side-on tracking shots of the birds and the hunting, where it is as if the cameramen were able to set up a rail along the ocean. Most spectacular of all is the sequence of a glacier collapsing into the ocean, where 75m tons of ice being sloughed off in less than 20-minutes. But at times Our Planet feels a little unfocused. Attenborough’s last big BBC series, Dynasties, won almost unbearable amount of emotional resonance through its focus on animal families. Our Planet is more of a greatest-hits parade, with overblown orchestral soundtrack and ponderous intonation. You can’t buy love, even if you pay for David Attenborough.”
Netflix
7/26 Road to Brexit (BBC)
“The Road to Brexit is easily the best thing to emerge from the whole brexit imbroglio. OK, not much competition, but still… Despite the po-faced title, you realise very quickly that it’s not yet another drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch or yet another attempt by Laura Kuenssberg to explain the inexplicable, or yet another show with the public arguing about stuff they don’t understand. Rather, it’s a very clever, very funny, very ‘different’ parcel of bollocks to Brexit.”
BBC
8/26 Fleabag (BBC)
“While there are plenty of well-turned one-liners, the deeper attraction of Fleabag is schadenfreude. The character is as old as Daisy Buchanan or Lydia Bennett or Scarlett O’Hara. The best compliment to Waller-Bridge and her cast is that they find fresh clothes in which to dress these ancient monsters.”
BBC/Two Brothers/Luke Varley
9/26 Derry Girls (Channel 4)
“It is sometimes remarked that the Troubles in Northern Ireland make for an unpromising backdrop for a sitcom about adolescent kids. Well, yer man’s wrong, as they might say. Derry Girls, returning for a triumphant and exuberant second run, proves that humour, dark or otherwise, can be quarried from even the most unlikely of locations.”
Peter Marley
10/26 The Murder of Jill Dando (BBC)
“A tremendously sad, strange story then, and just as unfathomable today. Dando’s friends, family and the producer and director of the film have made a fitting and balanced tribute to her, something she deserves. I can’t really add anything to that.”
PA
11/26 Home (Channel 4)
“Home is a rather gentle, unobtrusive variation on the sitcom theme – but one that is built on a quite a bizarre premise. The twist is that a family who returns to Surrey from a holiday touring around France discover a Syrian refugee stuffed in the back of their SUV. Not only that, but, after a few moments of blind terrified panic about a suicide bombing, they eventually adopt him like he’s stray cat that’s just wandered in.”
Channel 4
12/26 Leaving Neverland (Channel 4)
“Michael Jackson has long looked like a burning tire yard. There were the allegations, the out-of-court settlements, the arrest, the trial and not-guilty verdict. But there has been nothing like Leaving Neverland”
AFP/Getty
13/26 This Time with Alan Partridge* (BBC1)
“This Time with Alan Partridge is such a consistently strong creative achievement that fears for the future of Alan Gordon Partridge, may, once again, be allayed. Or Alayned, perhaps.”
BBC
14/26 Shetland (BBC1)
“Like all the best detective dramas, Shetland engages the audience in the very process of detection. That way we grow intrigued, and we care. And so we find ourselves sitting next to Henshall in his (prominently featured) Volvo V70 estate, sharing his thoughts, intercepting suspects and being driven off the road by unidentified enemies.”
BBC/ITV Studios
15/26 The Umbrella Academy (Netflix)
“It is both a revisionist – and frequently batty – take on the caped milieu and a winningly knotty mystery. And it surely is the first big-budget superhero tale more indebted to Wes Anderson than to Stan Lee.”
Netflix
16/26 Baptiste (BBC1)
“Yet again the Williams have woven a brilliantly tangled web, helped in no small part by Karyo’s quietly arresting central turn”
PA
17/26 Catastrophe (Channel 4)
“There’s really been nothing quite like Catastrophe on our screens before, and it deserves its cult status for the quality of everything the production team do, not least the stunning cinematography in this finale. Thanks, all. I’m glad Catastrophe died happy.”
Channel 4
18/26 Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil (BBC2)
“For anyone who’s not altogether sure how British politics turned so suddenly into a rolling dumpster fire from which all exits are blocked then Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil is a necessary public service to explain exactly, and exactly how needlessly, we all came to be here.”
BBC/European Council Newsroom
19/26 Les Misérables (BBC1)
“West believes Valjean to be “the greatest hero in all literature”, and he plays the part with all the care and intricacy such a character deserves.”
BBC/Lookout Point/Laurence Cendrowicz
20/26 Danny Dyer’s Right Royal Family (BBC)
“You see, saint or sinner, prince or pauper, we are all part of one race, the brotherhood of man. And the saintly and regal Danny Dyer stands as its finest ambassador.”
BBC
21/26 The Secret Life of the Zoo (Channel 4)
“This documentary goes behind the shrubbery to show off these animals and their guardians. The humans are a pretty exotic bunch too, judging by some of the lines they come out with.”
Channel 4
22/26 A Year of British Murder (Channel 4)
“The programme-makers must have done much to win the confidence of so many friends and families, as they went through unspeakable personal pain; but they repay that confidence with an understated and powerful film.”
Channel 4
23/26 Brexit: The Uncivil War (Sky Atlantic)
“Despite what some feared, the casting of Cumberbatch doesn’t simply flatter Cummings – the A-lister is too good a chameleon for that. But, inevitably, as he scrawls out his campaigning brainwaves on a whiteboard, there is a touch of that deductive maverick Sherlock in his portrayal of this scruffy, balding political saboteur.”
Nick Wall
24/26 The Paras: Men of War (ITV)
“From the outset the production is elevated by its sensitive handling of the men – and the Paratroopers remain exclusively male – involved. These kinds of programmes have a tendency to fetishise toughness, lingering on assault courses and weaponry.”
Jonny Ashton/ITV
25/26 Billy Connolly: Made in Scotland (BBC2)
“Billy Connolly: Made in Scotland is a meandering look back over his life, career, and national identity – a “Proustian wander through Scotland”. There’s a lot of mordant chat about the weather, illustrated with shots of dark grey clouds above even darker grey lochs.”
BBC/7Wonder/Jaimie Gramston
26/26 Doctor Who – New Year’s Day special (BBC1)
“As a slightly cheesy reminder of what we love about Doctor Who – i.e. the fact it gives us an intergalactic eccentric in a big flappy overcoat shouting at Daleks – this is a New Year treat that more than delivers”
BBC
“We’re looking for the c word…” he continues, and the ghost of Clarkson briefly hangs in the air between us. “Chemistry, that is.” Still, the new charges had to know a bit about cars, even if there’s no pretence that they’re on a level with Harris. “You have to be passionate,” he adds. “If you’re not authentic you get found out. You wouldn’t watch Jamie Oliver if you found out he couldn’t boil the egg.”
The logic behind the casting is mostly obvious. Harris, 44, does the fast driving and knows enough about cars to satisfy the purists in the audience. “I’m not really interested in people,” he says. “I just like messing around in cars. It’s the best legal drug ever invented.”
McGuinness, 45, best known as the cheeky chappy host of the ITV dating gameshow Take Me Out, knows how to work the studio audience, a part of the job with which LeBlanc, in particular, never seemed comfortable. Thanks to Flintoff’s presenting gig on Sky1’s sports quiz, A League of Their Own, as well as his various batty excursions into boxing, musical theatre and adverts for Jacamo’s fashion for larger men (“I’ll sort you out,” he says at one point, gesturing at my belly), the 41-year-old has now been a “TV personality” for as long as he was a cricketing hero. Still, what’s he here for?
“I’m just ’ere,” he says. “For international.”
“It’s really for India and Pakistan, where he can bring in the cricket fans,” McGuinness adds.
“They don’t remember him playing,” says Harris, “but he looks a bit like Ben Stokes.”
On paper at least, both McGuinness and Flintoff satisfy the requirement of being broadly popular and blokey without being toxic. In the previews we were shown, there are moments where the group dynamic feels as forced as it does when the three of us are driving around, but the odd flash of humour shines through.
In the opening episodes they tour through Ethiopia. The lameness of some of the formal humour, like the “chunky knit jumper of shame” awarded to the slowest driver, is made up for by their delight in the landscape. For all the criticism, Top Gear remains one of the best jobs in TV, and the new boys at least have the grace to seem to be enjoying themselves. Did they worry about joining a programme with such “old-fashioned” associations?
“People might have that opinion because it’s about cars,” says McGuinness, sensing that I’m really asking if it is very 2019 to have two white blokes join the blokiest of bloke shows. “But nobody’s going around saying, ‘Should a male be doing The X Factor’.” It’s a bit of an odd answer, but they can be forgiven for feeling a bit defensive given the programme’s past.
In other ways, the new series aims to be much more of its time. Flintoff has spoken previously about his struggles with depression, and the three men aren’t afraid of the odd hug amid all the joshing. There’s at least one extended sequence on electric cars. “With the shift to electric cars, I actually think it’s a good time to be doing the programme,” says Flintoff.
The numbers disagree. Along with Top Gear’s ratings slide, Amazon has been tweaking The Grand Tour’s format, too, getting rid of the studio audience sections to focus on the trips. Have the three of them taken any lessons from their streaming rivals “I’d like to take elements of their wages,” he says. “Those boys are on Roman Abramovich money.”
For all the bluster, it’s clear there is a lot riding on this. Top Gear was one of the BBC’s cash cows, and they must be desperate for it to reclaim its status. But it can only endure so many reboots before it is sent to the crusher’s yard.
“The big picture, for me, having grown up with Top Gear, is that it was loved,” Harris says. “We need to get that back. It needs to be an institution.” He and his likeable new buddies have a big task. You can’t hurry love, even if chemistry can be reasonably fast.
Top Gear returns to BBC2 at 8pm on Sunday 16 June
