Life after Clarkson?

I will admit to the fact that I watch and like Top Gear. I sit through each episode green with envy whilst the presenters, Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond drive some of the most wonderful cars on earth at high speed on an airport runway. I like the challenges with which they are presented by the producers (yeah, right). So the ad libs are well rehearsed and the accidents and incidents plainly contrived and the humour, such as it is, can be risqué or merely cheap, well, that can be part of its appeal. And central to that appeal is Jeremy Clarkson.

The essence of the show is that it is, somehow anti-establishment, but nothing could be further from the truth. Clarkson, for example, was privately educated, belongs to the so-called Chipping Norton set which includes fellow anti-establishment characters as Old Etonian prime minister David Cameron, the odd Murdoch or two, racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks and his lovely wife Rebekah, as well as chain-smoking, bass playing, cheese maker Alex James. Clarkson also provides right wing polemic for two of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers, the Sun and the Times, railing against the myth of ‘political correctness’ and anyone left of the Liberal Democrats, which is virtually everyone, except Tories. And he has a habit of casual racism over a long period with his unfortunate use of the ‘N’ word, the ‘hilarious’ slope joke in Thailand, various comments about Mexicans and others and sometimes just sheer abuse, referring to the former prime minister Gordon Brown as ‘a one-eyed idiot’. If Brown wasn’t a prominent politician, I suspect many would have condemned Clarkson for attacking someone with a disability, but he’s a Labour politician, so Clarkson, ever the bully, feels he is fair game.

And Clarkson the bully is what his current suspension from the BBC is all about. It is alleged – yeah, that one again – that Clarkson punched a producer whilst he was the worse for wear. We will know next week what happened and what will then happen to Clarkson but let’s put it this way, if I had punched someone at work, there would have been no need for an inquiry: I’d have been sacked there and then. Just because he is ‘a character’, a much-loved TV presenter (?), ‘a talent’ or merely a prominent member of the establishment with friends in high places should not make him exempt from disciplinary action.

Could Top Gear continue without Clarkson? Who knows, but I suspect the strength of the franchise suggests that, after a period of retrenchment, it would survive. The bigger question is whether Clarkson would survive. If he is Mr Top Gear, what else is he? He once had a chat show, which bombed and would a new contrived version of a Top Gear work on another channel? Would he be able to survive as a polemist alone if he did not have the association with one of the most popular programmes on TV? Perhaps as a newspaper columnist, yes, but as a TV presenter without portfolio beyond doing funny things in cars? I have my doubts. Clarkson is no Bruce Forsyth, for example, able to move effortlessly between genres. He is a one-trick pony, albeit with a trick that is very good.

Hammond and May would do well to consider their own futures should Clarkson depart from Top Gear. Hammond has already been found wanting in hosting different types of shows. Of the three, easily the most interesting is James May, a man whose presentational talents have more depth and breadth to either Hammond or Clarkson.

Top Gear will rise from the ashes. The establishment will doubtless pronounce its death if their hero is axed, but once the dust settles, Clarkson will eventually become someone who was a good presenter, who entertained a lot of people, but eventually crashed and burned as people do when they lose perspective of their own limitations and self-importance.

Yes, Top Gear is Jeremy Clarkson for now, but Jeremy Clarkson is Top Gear and without it he is greatly diminished.