Top Gear Live is back and this year they've gone for a complete reinvention, Richard Hammond tells KILIAN DOYLE
RICHARD “HAMSTER” Hammond is in particularly chipper form, even for him. And why wouldn’t he be?
For he, along with Jeremy “Clarkson” Clarkson and James “Captain Slow” May, are about to embark on a second Top Gear Live tour, during which they’ll descend on six countries – including Ireland – to mess about, blow stuff up and generally have the time of their lives.
"We're like a rock band," Hammond jokes, half-seriously, while speaking to Motorsat the launch of the tour in the Royal Geographical Society in London last week. It's not an idle boast. Hammond, with his engaging grin, youthful good looks, gelled mop of hair and designer-distressed jeans, could easily pass for the bass player in a stadium-filling MOR combo.
But he has no rock star pretensions. Although the laddish, devil-may-care antics of the Top Gearteam may grate with many, Hammond is an eminently likeable chap in the flesh, the type of bloke you'd happily sink a few pints with over tales of motoring derring-do.
This, as it turns out, is one of their favourite pastimes while on tour. With May cackling away conspiratorially, Clarkson merrily regales the room of assembled hacks with tales of alcohol-fuelled “bandjacking” in Dublin nightclubs during their visit last year.
Hammond turns sheepish when we ask him later about our suspicion that the trio may have been suffering a 500 horsepower hangover during their lairy Sunday-morning performance in the RDS last year. “Hmm, right,” he says, shuffling awkwardly in his seat. “Well, if you lot in Dublin weren’t so bloody welcoming . . . ”
While envy may drive the average man to want to dislike him for having what he freely admits is the “best job in the world”, it’d take a hard heart to do it. He’s refreshingly down-to-earth, self-deprecating and candid about his burgeoning fame. “It is kind of intense, but it’s not something you ever kind of accept, because I don’t think anybody – nobody sane anyway – ever thinks of themselves as being famous or a celebrity. It still comes as a surprise, even though it’s all the time. But it’s not a bad job, is it? So it’s not a big price to pay.”
We broach the accusations that Top Gearis irresponsible, promotes bad behaviour and is dismissive of ecological concerns, not to mention the charges of casual xenophobia, sexism and homophobia.
Hammond bristles at the eco-unfriendly charge, earnestly pointing out that he cycles everywhere when he’s in London. He also insists Clarkson’s constant “gay” taunts of the decidedly heterosexual May are “just playground humour”.
“We all have our own opinions, some quite forcible,” he adds, throwing his eyes in Clarkson’s general direction. “I think, sometimes, if there’s going to be a mark or a boundary, if someone or something occasionally steps the other side of it, that only serves to show where that boundary is.”
So does this mean his colleagues sometimes embarrass him? “Oh God, they both do, all the time,” he laughs.
The conversation turns to the bags of manure that were recently dumped on the lawn of Clarkson’s manor house in Oxfordshire by angry climate- change activists. Has Hammond ever worried that he could be at risk of being attacked by a lunatic armed with something far more dangerous than a pile of steaming poo? After all, it only takes is one lone nutter with a grudge.
“There are all manner of extreme people with extreme views,” he says. “They could affect any of us at any time for any reason, so whatever your views, there’ll always be somebody who objects strongly enough to risk hurting you. You’d have to be pretty bland to never offend anyone.”
For now, he’s focused on the tour, promising an eardrum-bursting, adrenaline-charged feast of mayhem. In addition to presiding over a hall full of the most desirable metal on the planet, they’ll be bringing back the Cool Wall and having a motor race where their cars are lit on fire before they set off. To top it all, the Stig will attempt what is being billed as the world’s first indoor loop-the-loop in a car.
Hammond gets visibly disappointed when told that – even though it sold out and widely hailed as a great success – some underwhelmed Irish punters complained last year’s show failed to translate satisfactorily from the TV studio into the live realm. “We have to make it bigger and better every year, and this year they’ve gone for a complete reinvention. Don’t forget, we’re learning; this kind of show has never been done. We’ve had to assemble a lot of people who can do a lot of things not everybody can do. We’ve worked together long enough that now we really can turn it up.”
As to the TV show itself, there have been murmurings that Top Gearmay be nearing its end. Hammond, keen to dispel these rumours, insists the programme is still as much fun to make as ever. "If we weren't, it wouldn't work," he says. "Nothing's changed. We started eight years ago and we're now into our 14th series. We walk out on stage and we're still the same three idiots."
However, he admits that, for whatever reason, they will eventually have to switch off their engines for good and park the show. “There will be a time when we know it’s time to go. The moment we weren’t getting on, we’d break up like any band that reaches that point.”
On whether Top Geargoes out with a bang or a whimper, Hammond declines to speculate. But given their past history, the smart money is on the former.
Top Gear Live runs in Dublin’s RDS from December 3rd to 6th