One of many BBC’s most profitable ever exports, motoring present High Gear, has had a chequered run lately, culminating with it being indefinitely suspended after presenter Freddie Flintoff was badly injured in an accident in 2022.
Now, former presenter Jeremy Clarkson says the present is required greater than ever, with the arrival of extra electrical vehicles.
Clarkson left the present underneath a cloud in 2015 after an altercation with a producer, and went on to entrance Amazon Prime’s The Grand Tour in addition to his personal hit farming present Clarkson’s Farm, however he advised The Instances of London it could be very unhappy if the present by no means returned.
Clarkson mentioned: “There’s room for a automotive programme in the intervening time as a result of vehicles are altering so quick and electrical vehicles are coming alongside and no person actually understands what’s a very good one and what isn’t.
“Again within the Fifties motoring journalism was necessary as a result of all of the automotive firms had been making an attempt new issues — several types of engines and several types of gearboxes — and also you wanted individuals to steer you thru the complexity.
“Then by and enormous it was pointless for the final 40 years and now it’s obligatory once more as a result of [when] I take a look at a kilowatt per hour automotive, I do not know what which means.”
Clarkson was fast to rule himself out of any such present, nonetheless, explaining: “I simply don’t perceive or like electrical vehicles, so I wouldn’t be all in favour of doing it.”
His remarks are available in the identical week because the launch of Flintoff’s self-titled documentary on Disney+. The previous cricketer revealed within the feature-length doc that his accident made him imagine he had been handled as “a chunk of meat” by programme makers, saying:
“That’s the hazard that tv falls into — and I discovered it out the laborious means ultimately. Everybody all the time needs extra. Everybody needs that factor that nobody has seen earlier than — that larger stunt, or to dig that little deeper.
“In some methods they assume: ‘Let’s have that close to miss as a result of that may get viewers.’ I ought to have been cleverer as a result of I had already learnt it in sport after all of the accidents and injections and occasions I bought despatched out on a cricket discipline like a chunk of meat. That’s the place TV and sport are fairly comparable. You’re only a commodity.”
Flintoff suffered critical facial accidents when his three-wheel automotive overturned throughout filming of the present in December 2022. The present was instantly placed on hiatus, and Flintoff mentioned within the documentary that he has stored little or no contact together with his former co-presenters, for his worry of being “triggered” by recollections of his accident.
The BBC launched an investigation into the circumstances of the accident, which The Instances added “consists of quite a lot of suggestions to enhance approaches to security” together with “elevated readability on roles and tasks and higher communication between groups for any future High Gear manufacturing.”
High Gear debuted again in 1977, and loved its most profitable period from 2002 with Clarkson on the helm, alongside James Could and Richard Hammond.
