OVER in the Cotswolds, God is in his heaven and Clarkson’s on his tractor, in blissfully reflective mode.
“All the adventures I’ve had in my life,” he smiles, “and I end up doing this, and I love it and . . . ”
Clarkson’s Farm was the most brilliant, funny and informative television show I watched in the whole of 2021
When we last saw Jeremy he was battered and bruised and coming to terms with a harvest that had yielded a profit of just £144
CRUNCH.
“St, st, st. St!”
He’s collided with a telegraph pole.
And there, in one scene, you have the joy and essence of Clarkson’s Farm where, when we last saw him, a battered and bruised Jeremy was coming to terms with a harvest that had yielded a profit of just £144.
A total which doesn’t sound like the most promising basis for a television show but, with the possible exception of The White Lotus, Clarkson’s Farm was the most brilliant, funny and informative television show I watched in the whole of 2021.
You can put a lot of that down to the way it stubbornly defied every idiotic modern TV convention and woke diktat, but it also owed much to the supporting cast, who’ve all returned for the second run, including: Cheerful Charlie Ireland, the farm manager; and Kaleb Cooper, who plays the perfect Sybil Fawlty to Clarkson’s disaster-prone Basil.
The Fonz of the piece and my own favourite character remains “Head of security” Gerald, who, I’m rather sad to report, seems to have lost his German subtitles and is now merely accompanied by the semi-permanent caption: “Gerald continues talking indistinctly.”
Livestock, though, is the one area where the line-up differs significantly from the first series.
Clarkson knew the narrative had to change somehow, so he replaced the sheep with cows and chickens, who’ve raised a whole new series of questions that other presenters would simply be too coy or pompous to ask but definitely need answering.
Why, for instance, is Dilwyn the vet shoving his hand up that cow’s arse when she’s pregnant?
How come some male cows are referred to as “steers” or “bullocks?” (“ ’cos they haven’t got any bollocks”.)
And do cockerels, Clarkson wanted to know, “also taste delicious and nutritious?”
“Yes, Jeremy,” replied Steph the chicken expert, rather pointedly: “You can eat cock.”
Watching eight hours of that sort of dialogue, while Clarkson finds new and imaginative ways of decapitating himself, would’ve served me perfectly well, if I’m honest with you.
The great twist to series two, however, is that Jeremy, in attempting to open a restaurant on his farm, inadvertently sets a trap for his local “red tape factory”, West Oxfordshire District Council, who don’t just walk into it, they skip and frolic their way into its jaws, accompanied by the local Nimbys who’ve seen all the money, people and happiness Diddly Squat brings to the area and want, quite unnaturally, to put a stop to it.
Clarkson is a prophet without honour in his own land and series two becomes the story of one man’s battle to make them see sense, which they don’t, of course.
He loses his restaurant battle, ultimately, but out of this Kafkaesque nightmare he’s created an incredible TV show and a very British sequel to Kevin Costner’s Field Of Dreams: If you build it, they will refuse planning permission.
He’s done something else extraordinary with Clarkson’s Farm 2 as well.
Because many other presenters, personalities and outright gobs***es have attempted to unearth “the real England”, with Channel 4’s Grayson Perry being the most recent example.
But all of them have failed because it’s a surprisingly hard thing to explain, so they get caught up in their own political prejudices.
By the simple virtue of letting nature take its own course and pointing the camera in the right direction, Clarkson really has got hold of the real England here and it’s as funny, contrary, infuriating, short-tempered, bureaucratic, weather-obsessed and beautiful as you’d imagine.
I just hope common sense prevails and not only does Amazon ignore outside political pressures and avoid a fate worse than Good Morning Britain, but West Oxfordshire District Council realises its constituency will never receive a more sincere love letter than the one Jeremy’s sent them.
- Clarkson’s Farm is available to view on Amazon Prime.
UNEXPECTED MORONS IN THE BAGGING AREA
THE CHASE, Bradley Walsh: “What country lies between Algeria and Libya on the North African coast?”
Theo: “Pakistan.”
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “What Latin word meaning ‘of the King’ follows Lyme to give the name of a Dorset seaside town?”
Chloe: “Scale.”
Ben Shephard: “In 2020, which Welsh singer became the first woman to have a UK Top 40 album in seven consecutive decades?”
Victoria: “Katherine Jenkins.”
Harsh.
RANDOM IRRITATIONS
THE wardrobe department at Channel 5’s heinously awful The Challenge UK styling Mark Wright to within an inch of a personality.
Channel 4’s Comedy Awards generating not a single laugh all night.
Bafta shamefully overlooking the great Bernard Cribbins in its obituary segment.
And arch luvvie Julianne Moore boldly declaring: “The performer navigates the space between the real world of the film set and the imaginative realm of the story”, when what I think she meant to say was: “They just pretend to be someone else for a couple of hours.”
A TASTE OF HEL FOR ALI
THE good news at BBC1’s Baftas was that successful members of the dressing up box community mostly kept their stupid political opinions to themselves and made some sweetly inoffensive acceptance speeches.
The bad?
Richard E Grant hosted the BAFTAS with Alison Hammond
Hosts Richard E Grant and Alison Hammond can now be added to the list of landmark pairings that includes Mick Fleetwood and Sam Fox and Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng.
Although strangely, it was the Oscar-nominated actor Grant who was the bag of nerves early on, and displayed all the comic timing of a Russian drone strike on downtown Aleppo throughout.
If he was expecting Alison to drag him out of that rubble though, he could forget it.
She has one foghorning gear (fifth) and “I’m-the-centre-of-attention” joke that’s started to wear very thin since TV bosses unilaterally decided the public couldn’t get enough of the girl.
An urgent reboot, you’d hope, will take place before next year’s ceremony.
But if Bafta is ever to repeat this experiment, she urgently needs to lose the over-familiar shtick which came gloriously unstuck when she tried it with a proper legend backstage.
“Are we going out tonight? Are we going to a Bafta party . . . ?”
Helen Mirren: “No.”
And if she wasn’t a Dame already, I’d be starting a petition.
QUIZ SHOW ANSWER OF THE MONTH
Celebrity Mastermind, Clive Myrie: “Which British author wrote the best-selling novels Kane And Abel and The Prodigal Daughter?”
Graham Bell: “Charles Dickens.”
(Pause)
“Jeffrey Archer.”
HAVING watched three amateurs cheerfully annihilate Taylor Swift’s song I Knew You Were Trouble on Saturday,
Starstruck’s name-dropping new judge Shania Twain revealed: “The last time I sat down with Taylor, we were in her kitchen and she served me a cheese plate.”
Which, by my calculations, means she’s now up to four cheese plates.
LOOKALIKE OF THE WEEK
This week’s winner is the middle member (Steve) from team Tom Jones on Starstruck and 3-2-1 legend Ted Rogers. Emailed in by Mike Brettle.Picture research: Amy Reading
GREAT SPORTING INSIGHTS
SEAN DYCHE: “The Merseyside derby is a great game of which I’ve had a lot of experience of not that.”
Gary Neville: “Grealish makes a karaoke movement with his left leg.” Paul Merson: “The pass was pinpoint accurate but just too long.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
CELEBRITY Mastermind, Clive Myrie: “Name?”
“James O’Brien.”
“Occupation?” Local radio bellwipe.You’re welcome.
TV GOLD
BBC2’s chilling and addictive Parole series.
The final episode of Michael McIntyre’s Big Show coming close to Saturday night perfection.
Tom Cullen’s slyly excellent version of John Palmer making up for the bad miscasting of Jack Lowden, on BBC1’s The Gold.
The beautiful outpouring of love and admiration from former colleagues like Jim Rosenthal and World Of Sport viewers for the one and only Dickie Davies.
And South Park’s brilliant demolition of Meghan and Harry’s “World Privacy Tour”.
Eternal shame, though, on Have I Got News For You, The Last Leg and all those other British satirical shows that were just too cowardly and useless to do the job for them.
GREAT TV LIES AND DELUSIONS OF THE WEEK
Love Island, Maya Jama: “I’ve got some important news.” (Ukraine retaken the Donbas, has it?)
The Comedy Awards, Grayson Perry: “Joe Lycett’s always unpredictable, always remarkable, always brilliantly funny.”
The Baftas, Alison Hammond: “We’ve got an actress, right here. Geri Halliwell.”
Although at least she didn’t say “singer”, I suppose.
lTV MYSTERIES OF THE WEEK
What on earth is Katie Price’s Mucky Mansion still doing on Channel 4,?
Who convinced Steph McGovern she’s Britain’s answer to Ellen DeGeneres?
What on earth is Katie Price’s Mucky Mansion still doing on Channel 4?
And why the hell does Love Island have a “head of onscreen talent?”
For the same reason Naked Attraction’s credits have two “wardrobe assistants” and Rangers always list a “striker” in Champions League games, I guess.
