As a jeering, jolly juggernaut juddering across our television screens, Jeremy Clarkson has had more lives than a vintage Ford Capri. He seemed done and dusted after getting sacked from Top Gear for punching his Irish producer a decade ago. Then there was his disgraceful Sun column about Meghan Markle, where he said he dreamed of the day she was paraded “naked through the streets of every town in Britain”. Such was the furore that Clarkson did the most un-Clarkson thing imaginable: apologise.
Despite these and many other controversies, he chugs on – much like Boris Johnson, another plummy Englishman of a certain age for whom life takes the form of a series of jolly japes, largely without consequence. In Clarkson’s case, his latest escapade might be his most lucrative. That is, of course, his scandalously watchable reality series, Clarkson’s Farm (Prime Video, from Friday), which, like an old tractor that refuses to die, now rumbles back into view, mucky but very much ready for duty.
The big joke this season is that the show‘s success has conspired to make life harder than ever for the flailing gentleman farmer in England’s Cotswolds (which come across like the Golden Vale for toffs). Farm assistant Kaleb Cooper has become a star in his own right and set off on a comedy tour, where he sings, I’ve Got A Great Big Combine Harvester to delighted fans. “I’m not a socialist– I want Kaleb to do well,” says Clarkson. But he adds that his employee’s success has made his daily routine on Diddly Squat Farm so much more challenging.
The going is undeniably tough. Rain sloughs down as he’s trying to feed pigs who look like they would much rather eat Clarkson. There is confusion about the new UK farm payment scheme that will replace the old EU one. The headaches continue when Clarkson decides to boost Diddly Squat’s sustainability by going through a lengthy search before buying a pub, which in his view needs to have planning permission for a shop and butchers (most do not).
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Cooper eventually returns. As does Clarkson’s Dublin-born partner Lisa Hogan, who, as the story begins, is off working on a new perfume for Diddly Squat Farm’s range of bespoke scents (“Drive and Wet”, anyone?). Plus, he’s hired a new assistant, Harriet. This comes as a shock to Cooper though, as, along with so much else in the Clarkson universe, the farm hands’ awkward first meeting is clearly staged for the cameras.
Perfume and land husbandry are a long way from Clarkson’s Top Gear roots. By the end of his days as a petrolhead, you could tell the thrill had gone. He’s a presenter reinvigorated on Clarkson’s Farm, and four seasons in, the show‘s air of muddy mayhem is as agreeable as ever.
