The Grand Tour boss Andy Wilman has defended the decision to hire an all-male trio of new hosts, saying that while female presenters were tried out during the casting process, the final choice came down to merit.
Wilman, the executive producer, said the new line-up of Thomas Holland, James Engelsman and Francis Bourgeois are like younger versions of the original Top Gear stars Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, who fronted the show for six series.
‘Emptier brains’ comment
Speaking about the decision to stick with three men, Wilman said: “It's fresh but familiar, comfort food, isn't it? When you try and reinvent, you go, 'Right, well, isn't it time to get a woman in that three lineup?' But there's something about three blokes with their interplay that they are off the leash with each other.
“I think there's a sort of simplistic-ness about blokes - they then provide the entertainment. I think blokes have like emptier brains. I think a bloke's brain is like the O2 when everyone's gone home, and the lights are off, and there's just like a little ball bouncing in the corner. If we swapped brains for a day, you'd go, ‘Is this all you do? Is this all you think about?’
“And if I swapped your brain, it'd be like an episode of Game of Thrones in my head. It'd be insane what's going on. I'm generalising, but I'm standing by it.”
‘No boxes to tick’
The TV executive, who went to school with Clarkson and relaunched Top Gear with him from 2002 to 2015, said Amazon had tried some women for the roles but decided to stick with the three-bloke formula.
“They did try some girls in the casting, but it came down to merit in the end. What there wasn't from Amazon was, ‘We expect a girl in the lineup by the end of this process.’ There was ‘try some’, but go with merit. So that happened.”
“It wasn't like ‘we're better’ - but would you put a guy in with Trinny and Susannah doing What Not to Wear? No, you wouldn't. They owned that turf. Girls speaking to girls.
“What there wasn't, from Amazon, was, ‘We expect a girl in the lineup by the end of this process.’ There was ‘try some’, but go with merit - there were no boxes to tick.”
He said he hoped The Grand Tour's female audience liked the new hosts. “I hope they find that these guys are really watchable. They don't have to fancy them, but they will like their intelligence.”
Younger, knowledgeable presenters
Wilman agrees the trio fit the same moulds as their predecessors - with Francis doubling for nerdy James, Thomas the 2.0 Clarkson and James just like Hammond. “These guys are noticeably younger,” Wilman said. "They probably can drive better - Francis is like a demon. They know their stuff, and they know what to say. So my instinct is people will like them.”
He said the contribution he and Clarkson made was to push for unknowns. “We didn't want them to just hire famous people. Which can be a tendency with a streamer—get a big name.”
He has high hopes the new hosts will be a big hit. “One, they say their own words—nobody writes sh*t for 'em. Two, their passion about cars is exactly the same as Jeremy, James, and Richard's. They get as much thrill out of a £100 car that's breaking down as the supercars. They're the same.”
With Thomas and James already having worked together on YouTube for years, the problem was finding the third person - but Francis, known for his love of trains, quickly won them over. “He knows more about cars than he does about trains, so he's authentic,” Wilman says. “He doesn't disturb their dynamic, but like a school of fish, they all go the right way automatically.”
With the BBC last week announcing the return of Top Gear after four years off air, he hopes the new version of The Grand Tour is well-timed. “These guys have effectively got in first, and they'll have got their feet under the table. This time they [Top Gear] are on the back foot because they haven't got any presenters at the moment.”
The Grand Tour is available to stream on Amazon Prime from Friday 4 September.
