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Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson is an English television presenter, journalist, author and farmer, who specialises in motoring. He is best known for hosting the television programmes Top Gear (2002–2015) and The Grand Tour (2016–2024) alongside Richard Hammond and James May. He also currently writes weekly columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun. Clarkson hosts the ITV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (2018–present), and co-hosts the farming documentary show Clarkson's Farm (2021–present).
James Daniel May is an English television presenter and journalist. He is best known as a co-presenter, alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond, of the motoring programme Top Gear from 2003 until 2015 and the television series The Grand Tour for Amazon Prime Video from 2016 to 2024. He also served as a director of the production company W. Chump & Sons.
The Stig is a character from the British motoring television show Top Gear. Created by former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson and producer Andy Wilman, the character is a play on the anonymity of racing drivers' full-face helmets, with the running joke that nobody knows who or what is inside the Stig's racing suit. The Stig's primary role is setting lap times for cars tested on the show. Previously, he would also instruct celebrity guests, off-camera, for the show's "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" segment.
Top Gear is a British motoring magazine programme created by the BBC that aired on BBC Two between 22 April 1977 and 17 December 2001. The programme focused on a range of motoring topics, the most common being car reviews, road safety and consumer advice. Originally presented by Angela Rippon and Tom Coyne, the show saw a range of different presenters and reporters front the programme's half-hourly slots, including Noel Edmonds, Jeremy Clarkson, Tiff Needell, William Woollard and Quentin Willson. The programme proved popular during the late 80s and early 90s, and launched a number of spin-offs, including its own magazine entitled Top Gear Magazine.
Stars in Fast Cars is a motoring-themed celebrity game show, in which celebrities compete in motoring challenges, including recreating movie stunts and racing modified armchairs. The series was first broadcast on BBC Three, in 2005, and repeated on BBC One in 2006.
Andrew Neville Wilman is an English television producer who is best known as the co-creator and former executive producer of the Top Gear show, from 2002 to 2015, as well as being the executive producer of The Grand Tour. He was responsible for much of the show's style and humour, along with Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. He has also presented segments of the original Top Gear. Wilman and Clarkson both attended Repton School along with Formula One designer Adrian Newey.
Top Gear: Winter Olympics is a full-length, special edition episode for BBC motoring programme Top Gear, and is the first in a series of full-length specials for the show. The episode was aired on 12 February 2006, with a repeat of the episode being aired a week later on 19 February. The special saw hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May travelling to Lillehammer, Norway and creating their own version of the Winter Olympics with cars. The episode was later released on DVD on 5 June later that year. Unlike most of the subsequent specials this special was not based around long distance cheap car road trip challenge but rather an episode that featured cars mostly new cars that were on the market taking part in modified versions of Winter Olympic sport save for the Ski Jump challenge involving an old Leyland Mini. The only other Top Gear special not to be centred around a cheap vehicle challenge was the Top Gear: Polar Special which involved a modern Toyota Hilux up against a dog sled.
Series 12 of Top Gear, a British motoring magazine and factual television programme, was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two during 2008, consisting of seven episodes that were aired between 2 November and 14 December. This series' highlights included the presenters tackling the task of driving lorries, investigating car-tuning, a fuel-economy race, the first power test by James May, and a review of cars made during the Cold War era. After the series concluded, a feature-length special for Christmas, titled Top Gear: Vietnam Special, was aired on 28 December 2008, focusing on the presenters travelling across Vietnam with motorcycles.
The British motoring-themed television programme Top Gear was often the focus of criticism. The criticism has ranged from minor viewer complaints to serious complaints where broadcasting watchdogs such as Ofcom have been involved.
Top Gear: Vietnam Special is a special 75-minute episode for BBC motoring programme Top Gear, and was first broadcast on 28 December 2008, as part of the final episode for the twelfth series, with the special repeated for UK TV channel Dave, initially in an edited, 46 minute version on 19 January 2009, but later revised to a 90-minute format following complaints by viewers. The special sees hosts, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, travelling 1,000 miles (1,600 km) across Vietnam with motorbikes, beginning from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), travelling north towards Hạ Long city, and finishing at a floating bar within Hạ Long Bay, a journey that had to be completed within eight days.
Series 13 of Top Gear, a British motoring magazine and factual television programme, was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two during 2009, consisting of seven episodes that were aired between 21 June and 2 August. As a publicity stunt, the series also had Michael Schumacher disguise himself as "The Stig", primarily due to the fact that a car they reviewed could not be driven by anyone but Schumacher for a timed lap of the programme's test track. Alongside this, this series' highlights included a 1940s styled race, a motoring challenge involving rear-wheeled cars, and the presenters entering a classic car rally. The thirteenth series received criticism over two elements - one for an advert designed by Jeremy Clarkson as part of a film for an episode; the other for the use of a word deemed offensive.
Top Gear: Botswana Special is a full-length, special edition episode for BBC motoring programme Top Gear, and was first broadcast on BBC Two on 4 November 2007, as part of the fourth episode of Series 10. The special sees hosts, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, travelling across to Botswana with a car that each had bought in Africa for less than £1500, to prove that they can be better than SUVs for driving up "leafy country lanes". The Botswana Special was released as part of a 2-disc DVD boxset alongside the Top Gear: Vietnam Special on 23 March 2009. This special is best remembered for the car Hammond bought, which he fell in love with and named "Oliver", which he still owns to this day.
"Top Gear: Middle East Special" is a 76-minute-long extended episode of Top Gear series 16. The film predates the Syrian Civil War and involves a 1,200-mile (1,900 km) road-trip from Erbil International Airport in Iraqi Kurdistan to Bethlehem, nominally recreating the journey of the Three Wise Men. Their journey takes them across the Middle East via southern Turkey, the cities of Aleppo, Palmyra and Damascus in Syria, then Jerash in Jordan and finally the Mount of Olives. The journey includes visiting an abandoned theme park, and a stop at Ein Gev on the Sea of Galilee.
Series 22 of Top Gear, a British motoring magazine and factual television programme, was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two during 2015, consisting of eight episodes - seven of these were aired between 25 January and 8 March, while the eighth was aired on 28 June following a disruption in production; two additional episodes were planned but never produced. The series was preceded by a two-part special focused on the presenters conducting a road trip across Argentina, titled Top Gear: Patagonia Special, and aired during 2014 on 27–28 December. This series' highlights included the presenters conducting a race across St. Petersburg, creating home-made ambulances, a recreation of a famous Land Rover Defender advert, and a road trip across Australia in GT cars.
Top Gear: Patagonia Special is a full length special that was aired as a two-part episode for the BBC car show Top Gear; the first part was aired on 27 December 2014, while the second part was aired a day later on 28 December. The special sees hosts, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, using a selection of cars with V8 engines to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the small-block V8 engine, on a journey across Chile and Argentina, starting from Bariloche and ending on the outskirts of Ushuaia, and includes the infamous scene involving the protesters that the presenters and their film crew encountered and the events that happened; it is the last Top Gear special to be filmed with the hosts, prior to Clarkson's exit from the show in March 2015 followed by Hammond, May, and Executive Producer Andy Wilman shortly afterwards. The incident with the protesters was widely documented and reported by the media, prior to the broadcast of the special.
Top Gear is a British automotive magazine and currently inactive motoring-themed entertainment television programme. It is a revival devised by Jeremy Clarkson and Andy Wilman of the 1977–2001 show of the same name for the BBC, and premiered on 20 October 2002. The programme focuses on the examination and reviewing of motor vehicles, primarily cars, though this was expanded upon after the broadcast of its earlier series to incorporate films featuring motoring-based challenges, special races, timed laps of notable cars, and celebrity timed laps on a course specially-designed for the relaunched programme. The programme drew acclaim for its visual and presentation style since its launch, which focused on being generally entertaining to viewers, as well as criticism over the controversial nature of its content. The show was also praised for its occasionally controversial humour and lore existing in not just the automotive community but in the form of internet memes and jokes. The programme was aired on BBC Two until it was moved to BBC One for its twenty-ninth series in 2020.
The Grand Tour is a British motoring television series, created by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, and Andy Wilman, for Amazon Prime Video, and premiered on 18 November 2016. The programme was devised in the wake of the departure of Clarkson, Hammond, May, and Wilman from the BBC television series Top Gear with an initial order of 36 episodes that were released over three years.
"The Holy Trinity" is the first episode of British motoring series The Grand Tour. It was made available exclusively through the Amazon Video streaming service, first on 17 November 2016 at 23:00 GMT. Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, who previously presented as a trio on BBC Two motoring programme Top Gear, present the show. Production of the episode was handled by W. Chump and Sons, with executive production done by Andy Wilman, who previously served as the executive producer of Top Gear.
Series 28 of Top Gear, a British motoring magazine and factual television programme, was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two during 2020, consisting of six episodes between 26 January and 1 March; the series' studio segments were filmed prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. The series was preceded by a feature-length special, involving a road trip by the presenters across Nepal, that was aired on 29 December 2019.