Jeremy Clarkson's sacking: is he too controversial for the modern, sensitive audience?

WANT proof Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May will be back on the TV soon? Australia, it’s right in front of you.

With Clarkson, Hammond and May Live shows sold out from Perth to Sydney this week following sellout events overseas, a petition that attracted 1 million votes in just 10 days, and Hammond and May knocking back twice their salary to continue on Top Gear with a new host, there is no doubt the trio will return to the small screen. It’s only a matter of time.

To recap the rumours so far, the lads have been linked to deals with Netflix, ITV and even a television station in Russia, where there is a hugely popular licensed version of the original Top Gear format.

Industry insiders believe there are just as many potential TV deals that have not been made public.

For now, though, fans are stuck in neutral waiting for the world tour of the live show to end (renamed simply Clarkson, Hammond & May, the Top Gear branding is gone) and for the boys to go back to what they do best.

Before flying to Perth for the first of the Australian shows this weekend, Clarkson filmed the last segment for his final Top Gear episode.

My last ever lap of the Top Gear track is done. Bit sad leaving the place for the final time. — Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) July 13, 2015

A 75-minute special — a collection of segments originally filmed for three episodes but cut into one giant show — is due to air in the UK in the coming weeks, before Top Gear starts a new series with a new presenter.

British radio star and car guy Chris Evans — who has blown his multimillion-dollar media earnings into a fleet of Ferraris, as any car perve would do — is due to host the show with an as-yet unnamed cast to be decided by public auditions.

It is, in effect, the same method that helped create the magical combination of Clarkson, Hammond and May. However, the chances of Top Gear being so lucky a second time are slim.

What’s not reported is just how vital Clarkson was behind the scenes, how he not only helped create many of the crazy ideas but how he drove the stories (pun intended) during filming.

When you see Clarkson aggravating May or irritating Hammond, it’s real. Clarkson is deliberately being a twat because he knows their responses make for good tele.

Driving some old bangers from A to B is a bit of a laugh, but it’s their interaction that keeps the audience glued, just as much as wondering which car is going to conk out next.

Car enthusiasts love it because all three presenters are so knowledgeable and so skilled as motoring journalists, their opinions have street cred because their arguments, amid the banter, are so incredibly accurate and thorough.

The rest of the world sees a bunch of blokes doing some skids and having a laugh.

The other person who doesn’t get enough credit for Top Gear’s epic success — 350 million viewers worldwide — is executive producer Andy Wilman, an old school friend of Clarkson, former motoring journalist turned TV genius, and the hardest worker on the show, regularly putting in 18-hour days to make sure every segment is perfect.

Unlike many other reality shows, Clarkson, Hammond and May are involved in each story idea from beginning to end.

In most if not all cases Clarkson even makes the final cuts, sprinkling pieces of brilliance throughout each film and deleting any material that slows the performance.

Rarely is there such a consistency of voice in television making.

Which is why, as talented as the new cast will no doubt be, the new show is unlikely to repeat the success Top Gear’s had over the past decade.

New host Chris Evans is rightly cautious about what he’s heading into.

“I promise I will do everything I possibly can to respect what has gone on before and take the show forward,” Evans says.

But even the BBC’s own media critics acknowledge the new Top Gear is going to be a challenge.

Mark Savage, BBC News entertainment reporter says: “On paper, he’s a perfect replacement for his good friend Jeremy Clarkson. A car nut with a motor mouth and a track record in steering a television juggernaut to success.”

“But he’s also a divisive figure, with many viewers put off by the unruly, egotistical behaviour,” Savage wrote.

Evans openly admits his appointment was greeted with a “50/50 split” among Top Gear fans.

“In TV or radio, if you get a 50/50 love/hate reaction that usually equals massive hit,” he says.

But Top Gear without Clarkson has been tried before, and it tanked. The audience halved in the gap years between Clarkson’s departure in 2000 and his return in 2002.

Few people are irreplaceable, but Clarkson is.

David Sillito, BBC media and arts correspondent says when Top Gear relaunched with Clarkson in 2002 it ceased to be a program about cars, “it became a program about slightly tragic men who loved cars”.

“The essence was banter, lists and brilliant filmmaking. The problem is what happens when you lose the blokes,” wrote Sillito.

“Chris Evans is one of Britain’s most successful broadcasters. He loves cars, he understands how to make television and he’s a friend of Jeremy Clarkson. But he ain’t Jeremy Clarkson.”

Sillito adds a telling point: “Around the world Top Gear has appeared in different forms. The ones that work best have Jeremy Clarkson — even if he has to be dubbed into Farsi.”

So why couldn’t the BBC resolve the issue that led to Clarkson’s departure? (For the record, he wasn’t “sacked”, he was suspended and then his contract was not renewed).

The BBC had no choice. If Clarkson’s behaviour went unpunished it would create a nasty precedent. The consequences for assaulting another staff member are the same for TV stars as they are for forklift drivers or any other profession.

No-one is suggesting Clarkson should have gotten off for his altercation with producer Oisin Tymon, who went to hospital with a split lip after Clarkson chose an unconventional way to express his disappointment at missing out on a hot dinner after a long day of filming.

Lost in much of the hysteria is the fact it was Clarkson who dobbed himself in to BBC management. It was Clarkson who fessed up and said he overstepped the mark.

Tymon to date has not pressed charges, but Clarkson has nevertheless paid a high price.

In his first radio interview about the incident two months ago, coincidentally with the man who will replace him, Clarkson told Evans being dropped from Top Gear “was my own silly fault”.

Most poignant, however, was an email written by Wilman and sent to the 113 crew who worked on Top Gear during the Clarkson era just days after the “fracas” in March.

“I know none of us wanted it to end this way, but for a moment I’d like us to look back and think about just what an incredible thing you all had a had in creating,” wrote Wilman in an email that was eventually leaked to the media by one of the recipients.

“We had a lot of laughs, we had a lot of tiffs. We went to amazing places and we went to some s---holes. We nearly killed a presenter, we had to run for the border. We started off with whoever we could get in the Reasonably Priced Car and ended up with Tom Cruise. At least we left ’em wanting more.”

Finally, Wilman added: “Our stint as guardians of Top Gear was a good one, but we were only part of the show’s history, not the whole of it. Those two words are bigger than us.”

This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling