Strewth mate, seems there must be some ’roos loose in the Beeb’s top paddock:
it’s sold the rights to its most popular telly series to Oz.
Yes, the quintessentially British Top Gear is to be remade down under by
Australian television station SBS, in a bid to roll out the franchise that
is a global ratings success.
The eight-show series starts filming next month for broadcast at the end of
summer. However, viewers hoping to see old favourites Jeremy Clarkson, James
May and Richard Hammond racing along Bondi Beach will be disappointed – SBS
has cast three home-grown presenters.
They are Charlie Cox, better known in Britain as a BBC motor sport
commentator; Warren Brown, a newspaper cartoonist; and Steve Pizzati, a
motoring writer and stunt driver. Although the producers claim none of the
presenters is modelled on the British counterparts, a glance at their
profiles suggests that Cox will be the Clarkson of the gang (sample
commentary: “That driver’s so unlucky that if he fell in a barrel of boobs
he’d come up sucking his thumb”).
Brown is an Aussie May – he has a passion for the ukelele and banjo and
collects old vehicles, including two 1920s fire engines and an armoured car.
Pizzati is the youngest of the three and has Hammond’s cheeky-chappie charm.
He describes himself as a failed jet pilot turned racing driver and a “gun
for hire”. Completing the lineup is, naturally, a helmeted racing driver who
never speaks – “the Stig’s Aussie cousin”.
The show’s content remains top secret (actually, they’re still thinking up
ideas), but producers are hoping the on-screen chemistry of the presenters
will be as successful as that of the BBC version. “The key thing is the
chemistry between them – they all get on with that self-deprecating humour
that has made the original so popular,” says Matt Campbell, head of content
at SBS.
“So far we have been really happy with them all, they just click. The best
thing about Top Gear is that both women and men watch it and the appeal is
that it shows men as they really behave in one another’s company. Even if
they are 40, most of them act like they’re 17, with all the enthusiasm and
jokes that you get. Viewers love that, and that’s what we are hoping to
capture.”
As for the stunts – such as racing amphibious cars across the Channel and
trying to send a Reliant Robin into space – that have made the original Top
Gear such a hit, Campbell is confident his team will be able to match them.
“I think some of the sequences that we have in mind will make Clarkson,
Hammond and May quite jealous,” he says. “They haven’t got the diverse range
of terrain that we have in Australia to muck around in.”
The BBC won’t say how much it will rake in from licensing one of its most
successful exports, but the show is said to be worth £500m in total to the
corporation, thanks to its popularity among 350m viewers in 32 countries –
including Australia, where it has become compulsory viewing. SBS aims to run
the Aussie version in the same viewing slot as its British counterpart.
The selection process to find the three presenters has been compared to the
way in which the Monkees, the 1960s American pop group, were put together to
rival the popularity of the Beatles. Would-be presenters were asked to send
in a DVD of themselves and complete an application that asked for – among
other things – their favourite car and their funniest motoring experience.
“There was a national call-out so anybody in Oz could enter for the role as a
host of Top Gear Australia, and just over 4,000 entries arrived,” says
Brown, an engaging eccentric who plans to keep his full-time job drawing
political cartoons for the Sydney Daily Telegraph – a cousin of The Sunday
Times.
“There was an exhaustive process of selection and elimination that ran over
the next few months. It was whittled down from 4,000 to 200 to 35 to 12. We
had a secret Top Gear boot camp to decide between the final 12. We had to do
all sorts of things: drive while microphoned up to see how we talked while
driving, then different scenarios where we were teamed up with other
members.
“The amazing thing as far as I’m concerned is that when Steve, Charlie and I
were together we just clicked. The whole premise of this process was to see
if we would just click as mates, and we did.”
One hopeful, who was ultimately unsuccessful, was so keen to make an
impression on the producers he flew to China to make his showreel. “His film
opened up with him in his Range Rover saying, ‘And now I am going to drive a
golf ball from the roof’,” recalls a member of the production team. “Next
thing we know, he is standing on the roof of the car with his golf club as
it bumps along this dirt track, teeing off. The film then cut to him
standing on the Great Wall of China to catch the ball. You have to respect
dedication like that.”
SBS is mindful that the British Top Gear was built around the draw of
Clarkson, and that the success of the Australian version depends on whether
it can replicate his appeal.
So is Charlie Cox up to the job? A former racing driver who used to commentate
alongside Murray Walker on the British Touring Car Championship, and now
commentates on Moto GP bike racing, he refuses to be drawn on whether he has
been cast as Clarkson, except to say: “I’m not boffin-like and I’m not short
and cute, so if I’m old and grumpier and bombastic, I’ll leave it to you to
decide.”
He does, he admits, have a penchant for tight jeans (“they get tighter each
year, mate”) and T shirts. Although he was born in Sydney, he plans to fly
back and forth from his home in London to Australia for filming.
The launch of the Australian Top Gear could pave the way for more local
versions to be commissioned. NBC, the American broadcasting network, has
already started auditioning for a US version and has plans for a pilot show
later this year.
“It will still be three guys, because that’s just part of the format,” says
Andy Wilman, executive producer of Top Gear in the UK, who is advising the
Australian and American networks. Wilman attributes Top Gear’s international
success to its central theme – blokes. “It’s a bit of an insight into the
male mind; an immense vacuum of pointlessness. That’s the pleasure of it in
part, and it’s something anyone of any age or sex can enjoy.
“Cox is the mature anchor. The other two are TV virgins, more or less, but I
think Australians will like them. They feel like normal guys who have been
pulled off the street and put in front of a camera. They are not presenters.
They both love their cars and they’ve both got good humour.”
Wilman says part of the show’s charm is in the amateurishness of the cast.
“It’s got to be three mates messing around, not three presenters presenting.
When they say, ‘We’re here with our three amphibious cars’, you’ve got to be
able to believe that they are actually quite enjoying it. You can tell
they’ll be all right at that.”
Not everyone thinks the programme can be successfully transplanted, though.
Jay Leno, the American chat-show host and InGear columnist, wrote recently
that he turned down an offer for him to present the American version,
fearing that the humour and iconoclasm of the original would be lost in
translation.
“I think it would be impossible to recreate or live up to the standards of the
British show,” he says. “My great fear in America is that, for instance, if
Kia was our sponsor this week, we’d have to say the car was fantastic.
“Some British shows translate quite well here – The Office, for example. But
with Top Gear I have such respect for the original show, I feel if they
asked me to do it I would be a pale imitation of Jeremy.”
Of course, the great unspoken fear is that Australia will do what it’s done
before: take a formula invented in Britain and improve on it (let’s not
mention cricket and rugby). The Australian producers are already steeling
themselves for some kind of international Top Gear challenge. “I think it
won’t be long before Clarkson and his gang will want to come out here and
take us on,” says Campbell. “The Aussies against the Pommies – I’d like to
see it as the Ashes of car shows.”
And, true to form, Clarkson has already started the sledging: “In the whole of
human history, Norway’s only contributions have been the paperclip and the
cheese slicer,” he wrote recently, continuing: “Only Australia has achieved
less, with the rotary washing line.”
If the Australian Top Gear is a hit, he may have to eat his words.
How the Top Gear crews compare
The jokers
Charlie Cox
Age “Late forties”
Dress style Ageing surfer/ Aussie throwback slob
Favourite car Porsche GT2
Other job Motor sport commentator
Sample one-liner “He needs that like a third armpit” (When a driver
suffered a problem)
Jeremy Clarkson
Age 48
Dress style Shires chic: shirt tucked into denim
Favourite car Bugatti Veyron
Previous job Teddy bear salesman
Sample one-liner “Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming
stationary, that’s what gets you, that’s the killer”
The eccentrics
Warren Brown
Age 43
Dress style Biggles
Favourite car 1925 Bean (British built)
Other job Newspaper cartoonist
Sample one-liner “What is the Stig? He could be an automaton – might be
Yul Brynner from Westworld”
James May
Age 45
Dress style 1980s roadie turned secondary- modern English teacher
Favourite car Bentley T2
Previous job Subeditor on The Engineer then on Autocar (sacked from the
latter)
Sample one-liner “And now, the car every footballer’s wife’s
hairdresser’s masseuse has been waiting for: the new Mercedes SLK”
The cute ones
Steve Pizzati
Age 33
Dress style Young urban – leather jacket and turned-up collar
Favourite car Porsche GT3 RS
Other job Stunt driver, freelance motoring journalist
Sample one-liner “Guys, can we please have that in colour, not black
and white” (When Cox and Brown begin rambling about classic old cars)
Richard Hammond
Age 38
Dress style Trendy lad about town
Favourite car Porsche 911
Previous job Barman before joining BBC Radio York
Sample one-liner “The only difference between me now, and before the
crash, is I like celery now” (After crashing a jet-powered car at more than
280mph)
