Jeremy Clarkson returns for a fifth series of Clarkson's Farm, announcing: 'I'm back and not dead. It was f***ing close though.' He refers to a blocked artery requiring heart surgery in 2024, but the line could equally apply to his career. Once again, Clarkson has pulled back from the brink, but critics question whether the public is being fooled by his avuncular farming persona. Has the provocateur vanished, or is the series merely an exercise in 'farmwashing'?
Clarkson's move to Amazon proved a successful distraction from controversies that made him unpalatable at the BBC. He called Gordon Brown a 'one-eyed Scottish idiot', described the Welsh language as 'a silly maypole', and faced repeated criticism over road safety. In 2015, he was suspended from Top Gear after a physical altercation with producer Oisin Tymon, leaving Tymon with a bleeding lip. The incident ended his BBC career but led Amazon to snap him up for The Grand Tour and Clarkson's Farm.
Clarkson's Farm has allowed Clarkson to reinvent himself, much like Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney's Welcome to Wrexham. It rehabilitated a reputation tarnished by accusations of bigotry: in 2011, the Indian High Commission complained about 'tasteless jibes' in a Top Gear special; in 2014, he muttered a racial slur in an unaired episode; and the same year, he caused a diplomatic incident in Argentina over a provocative license plate. In 2022, he wrote in The Sun about Meghan Markle: 'I hate her... I dream of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets... while the crowds chant, 'Shame!' and throw lumps of excrement at her.' He later apologised.
Despite calls for cancellation, Amazon renewed the show, which is its most-watched UK series and a hit in China. Clarkson's farm has also spawned a pub, The Farmer's Dog, causing traffic chaos on the A40. The fifth series sees Clarkson leading aggrieved farmers against Chancellor Rachel Reeves's 'astonishing attack on British farming'. The show's success suggests Clarkson has become too big to fail, but it also raises questions about editorial policy under Jeff Bezos.
