Top Gear in Iraq: bullets, The Stig and 'a few wars’
James May on the show’s Christmas specials - and shooting at Jeremy Clarkson’s car.
Ah, the joys of being a Top Gear producer. Every TV special, there’s a fresh challenge: how to corral James May, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond into new realms of mortal terror, without ever quite killing them, or breaking the BBC health and safety regulations. It’s a balancing act of finesse and delicacy, and this year’s Boxing Day spectacular is no exception.
Perhaps you’ve already seen the teaser clip. It starts like this: a cargo plane, arriving at a mysterious desert airport. Our heroes contemplating where they might have landed. “Well!” says Clarkson cheerfully. “We’re here! Wherever here is, we’ve arrived.” Cut to rear of plane. Clarkson looks at the producer’s instruction letter. His jowls droop. “Oh God,” he says, then reads aloud: “You have landed in Iraq…”
The terrors actually begin before touchdown when, with the rear door wide open, the pilot aborts his landing, prompting much screaming inside.
“We had this fantastic, tilting view of the world receding through the back of the aeroplane, which was especially alarming for Hammond, because he was right next to the door,” says May, who knew only that they would be heading somewhere in the Middle East when he boarded the plane. And his reaction on discovering their location? “Slightly stunned - considering how ninny-ish they’ve become about what we’re allowed to do. I thought, ‘Crikey, have they gone too far with this one? I mean, they even gave us bullet-proof jackets.’”
Their mission was to retrace the journey of the Three Wise Men in a BMW, a Fiat and a Mazda, picking up gold, frankincense and myrrh on their way to the Holy Land. Bethlehem was a mere 1,200 miles away but, as the instructions helpfully pointed out, “between here and there, there are a few wars” – a fact not entirely lost on May.
“We were in Kurdistan, which is relatively safe, but we weren’t that far from Mosul, which is one of the most dangerous bits of Iraq,” he says. “I found myself thinking, ‘We could get shot at, or kidnapped.’”
Iran refused them entry: the BBC is banned there. South-east Turkey was dicey because of the war with Kurdish separatists. They took the precaution of shooting at Clarkson’s MX5 to see if it could withstand gunfire, though he wasn’t behind the wheel at the time (“It was tempting, but the paperwork would have been enormous”).
May can’t divulge many details about the next series, but says it will involve Hammond in “a ridiculous race against a man falling out of an aeroplane, or something” and a trip in Nasa’s new Lunar Rover. Following the legal spat over the identity of The Stig, it may or may not also feature a Stig Mark II. “I have an official response on this from the BBC lawyers,” he says. “I am to say to you: ‘Anything can happen in Stigland – you’ll just have to wait and see.’ It’s the answer to pretty much anything you can ask me. Ask me another question about The Stig.” Will the new Stig appear in episode one? “Well, anything can happen in Stigland…”
With two Top Gear series and a possible Toy Stories special planned for 2011, May is now looking forward to a Christmas break. Hammond, touchingly, was responsible for giving May his beloved cat Fusker some years ago, but the Top Gear stars generally avoid exchanging presents (“We’re far too cynical and cool for that”). At home, May and his girlfriend, dance critic Sarah Frater, have imposed a £5 limit on gifts to each other. But that doesn’t stop him splashing out when the mood takes him; last Christmas, he bought himself a Ferrari F430.
One imagines that Clarkson might be rather Grinchy about Christmas. “No, I don’t think he is, actually,” says May. “I don’t know about the spiritual side of it, but I think he’s quite into the parties and fun and community. He won’t be buying me a present, though; I’m fairly confident of that. And if he is, it’s not going to be something I want.”
There are two Christmas episodes of Top Gear, next Tuesday and Boxing Day respectively, on BBC Two at 8.00pm. You can read James May’s motoring column in The Daily Telegraph every Saturday
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