Clarkson’s Farm is a cultural phenomenon that can genuinely claim to have revolutionised television
SAY what you like about David Beckham’s old friend Rebecca Loos, she certainly brought pig sex to the attention of the great British public.
Then, just as spectacularly as she’d first raised the issue, on Channel Five’s never-to-be-forgotten 2004 series of The Farm, it vanished again.
But rejoice, people. It’s back, in a big way, all thanks to Clarkson’s Farm, a cultural phenomenon that can genuinely claim to have revolutionised television, which now has some very earnest copycat shows toiling away on other channels.
None, though, have come close to the brilliance of the original Amazon Prime series, which was the first ever agricultural programme to realise the secret lay not in yet another “life on the farm is hard” bleat, but in the comedy potential of the industry and Jeremy Clarkson himself.
Got the right hump
One cack-handed man, from Doncaster, rubbing not just all of his co-workers and animals up the wrong way, but half of the Cotswolds as well.
It means the arrival of each new series is now a genuine television event, so I was relieved beyond words when Clarkson started the third one, last Friday, by admitting: “Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.”
He wasn’t kidding either.
The council has shut down his restaurant, fertiliser prices have soared, the weather has destroyed his crops and sidekick Kaleb has got the right hump over everything, to the extent that there’s a bit more of an edge now to his “Stan and Ollie” relationship with the boss.
It all makes for great TV, obviously, as Diddly Squat is very much a disaster-driven enterprise.
The stroke of technical genius behind the Clarkson’s Farm format, though, is the seamless way it re-invents every series while maintaining exactly the same “Oh f***, aaaaargh” vibe.
The first run was a getting-to-know-you exercise, with Kaleb, Gerald, Charlie, Lisa and the rest of the gang.
The second was Clarkson’s on-going battle with those parochial and bureaucratic sods at West Oxfordshire District Council. While this third one has changed it again with three new elements on the farm.
Goats are now present to kick Clarkson in the balls, literally.
Mushrooms are there to kick Clarkson in the balls, metaphorically.
And pigs are there to do both.
Clarkson’s Farm is far more than just a slapstick sitcom. It’s also a current affairs show, natural history programme, documentary and drama.
Triumph and despair come in fairly equal measures with these animals.
The images that’ll linger longest, though, involve a pig threesome, in episode two, which unravelled like a Bullingdon Club lunch, with Clarkson and partner Lisa occupying the dual roles of both intimacy co-ordinators and commentators. “His cock’s in, have you got any ginger nut biscuits?”
“Jeremy, can you do it on the back of her, please and I’ll do the biscuits?”
“She’s got to think she’s having sex and I’m giving her that impression, according to my book.”
Book? What book, Jeremy? Deliverance? The GC: How To Be A Diva? David Cameron: For The Record?
I need to know what great work of literature inspired this golden television moment.
Although I should stress immediately, just in case anyone’s got the wrong impression, Clarkson’s Farm is far more than just a slapstick sitcom.
It’s also a current affairs show, natural history programme, documentary and drama.
All elements of which feature in four brand new episodes, released today, along with the joyful news that Gerald, the beating heart of this show and resident Fonz, is winning his battle with prostate cancer.
“Masterpiece” would be a very lazy way of describing series three, because Jeremy has his own far more versatile phrase for summing up his triumphs on Clarkson’s Farm, so I’m happy to paraphrase.
He’s done a thing.
Granite hard to believe
BBC1’S newish police drama Granite Harbour remains as authentically Aberdonian as a Mariachi band playing Herb Alpert’s back catalogue in the Covent Garden branch of Wahaca.
A verdict that may be slightly distorted by the fact it’s 31 years and seven months since I lived in the city that I may no longer recognise but still miss every single day of my life.
To the BBC’s cultural imperialists, however, it’s just another blip on a map that isn’t diverse enough for their metropolitan tastes, so there are as many West Indian and Iranian voices in Granite Harbour as there are Aberdonian accents which, as far as I can tell, are limited to the Shifty McGifty behind the bar and the local drug-dealing scumbag.
Front and centre, though, is Jamaican policeman DC Davis Lindo whose fish-out-of-water turn might work if Romario Simpson could act and Granite Harbour had a decent script.
But he can’t and all it’s got is some cut-and-paste Beeb wokery about the plight of asylum-seekers at the hands of people-traffickers from Norway, who aren’t exactly famous for that sort of caper, so must have been chosen for “other reasons”.
In such desperate and dreary circumstances, it’s common to conclude this show could have been set anywhere.
But the only place Granite Harbour could actually have been conceived and evacuated is a toilet cubicle deep in the bowels of BBC HQ, London W1.
The sooner it f***s off back there, the better for all concerned.
AND finally, the most perfect response ever to the cult of victimhood, that’s had this country in its pathetic grasp for over a decade, from a bloke called Phil on The Piano (Channel 4).
Producer: “Has playing the piano ever helped you through a difficult time in your life?”
“No.”
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
THE Chase, Bradley Walsh: “La Barceloneta is a neighbourhood in what Spanish city?”
Dan: “Madrid.”
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “How many teams compete against each other in the FA Cup Final?” Liv: “40.”
The Finish Line, Roman Kemp: “In 2023, Nicola Sturgeon resigned as First Minister of which UK nation?”
Julia: “England.”
And Roman Kemp: “The prison in what Yorkshire town is nicknamed Doncatraz?”
James: “Leeds.”
Random irritations
RYLAN and Scott Mills failing the Eurovision semi-final audition to replace Graham Norton, who must never retire.
The clueless Britain’s Got Talent judges voting off Italian comedy duo Umberto and Damiano. ITV’s Chasers imagining they’re giving a compliment when they say “you’re a great quizzer” rather than telling contestants they have friendless dork potential.
And Amazon Prime’s Zone Of Interest screenings arriving with the warning the film contains: “Alcohol use and smoking.” ’Cos that’s the real worry with a Holocaust movie, isn’t it? The death camp commandant exceeds his 14 units for the week, while committing genocide.
Great sporting insights
MARTIN KEOWN: “It’s an all-or-nothing game, unless it’s a draw.”
Michael Dawson: “You don’t just get to the top, you go beyond.” Clinton Morrison: “When you’re Man United, teams are a little bit scared of you, probably not at this point in time because nobody is scared of playing against Man United.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
THE Finish Line, Roman Kemp: “What creature is a little bustard?”Julia: “I was going to say ‘kangaroo’.”
You mock? I was going to say “Owen Jones”.
TV Gold
ASIDE from Clarkson’s Farm, the only television show you really needed to watch this week was the thrilling return of BBC1’s The Responder, with Martin Freeman as officer Chris Carson.
It’s a second series that gets a bit lost in the darker folds of the story later on in the run, but it’s funny, brilliantly written and acted, nails every cultural reference, from talkSPORT to Cyril Fletcher, and could not have been a more perfect send-off for the great Bernard Hill, above, a mesmerising presence throughout as Chris’s malevolent, cake-obsessed dad.
What a terrible loss his death is to acting and television.
HAVE I Got News For You, Martin Clunes: “What has Boris Johnson been doing this week?”
Paul Merton: “Who cares?”
WHO CARES?
This show does, with a repetitiveness that borders on obsession and always ends with an obscure and useless comedian, like Chloe Petts, pointing out he’s got a lot of children, which gets a round of applause from the echo-chamber audience and starts the whole wretched process all over again.
So if you really want a free holiday, just change your name by deed poll to Boris Johnson and you’ll have one in Ian Hislop’s head ’til kingdom come.
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the week. Love Triangle, basic blonde bimbo Brodie: “A lot of people see me and think ‘basic blonde bimbo’, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.”
I Kissed A Girl, Dannii Minogue, above: “You’re all looking gorgeous.”
And Beat The Chasers, Paul Sinha to Sam Quek: “Hello again, Sam. It’s been a joy watching your TV career go from strength to strength. You’re quiz show royalty.”
Yeah, she helped kill off A Question Of Sport, but it’s onwards and upwards from now on, I’m sure.
Lookalike of the week
THIS week’s winner is Tory turncoat Natalie Elphicke and Ron Perlman as The Beast in Beauty And The Beast. Sent in by Peter Scott, of Glasgow.