Top Gear. Who’s in the driving seat?

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Top Gear. Who’s in the driving seat?

March 22, 2016 - 12:55
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Who’s in charge of Top Gear? That is the question. After the Cenotaph scandal it doesn’t appear to be Chris Evans.

New order...Chris Evans with the Top Gear team

Who’s in charge of Top Gear? That is the question. After the Cenotaph scandal it doesn’t appear to be Chris Evans.

So who is in the driving seat? Step forward world famous Clare Pizey to oversee the future of a show that seems unable to put a foot right.

Following the notorious incident in which Matt Le Blanc and his American driver speed-skidded through Whitehall and engulfed Britain’s sacred war memorial in tyre smoke, the bungling BBC is anxious to assure a concerned nation that it can actually organise a booze-up in a brewery.

In one of its trademark convoluted statements that make the situation as clear as mud, Aunty Beeb says that from now on Ms Pizey will take the “editorial lead” while carrot top Chris assumes the very important role of “creative lead”. Who’s the boss? Who knows?

But one thing’s for sure… it’s not someone called Katie Tyler anymore. Calamity Katie presided over the Cenotaph stunt which sparked a storm of furious protests from outraged military veterans, an immediate abject apology by Evans and a promise that the offending footage will never be screened. Nice work.

Quite why anyone thought this insensitive stupidity was ever a good idea remains a mystery. It was like doing a wheelie in a cemetery.

Amid a mass of behind the scenes unrest and production problems, the May launch date for the new unimproved Top Gear has been put back by two weeks.

Executive producer Lisa Clark quit because it was rumoured she felt that Chris had too much control. And the great man is said to be less than thrilled at having to play second fiddle to a Friends star far more famous than him.

Meanwhile, in the manner of camel being a horse designed by a committee, the BBC has appointed an unmagnificent seven presenters. A host of hosts. Which cynics might say suggests a certain indecisiveness.

If the build-up’s anything to go by, Evans’ Top Gear is a car crash waiting to happen. Now struggling by on his paltry Amazon Prime salary of £10million a year, a certain Jeremy Clarkson will be watching with interest.

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mickymac's picture

hopefully soon to be reversed into the nearest scrapyard.