My Top Gear Fear

So you might have seen recently that Chris Evans of Radio 1 fame (not the American actor, sadly - boo hoo!) has been joined on the new series of Top Gear by Matt LeBlanc of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Which, fair enough, is a bold move, especially since he set the fastest lap time as the star in a reasonably-priced car under the three stooges who are now ex-presenters.

Actually, "three stooges" is probably too harsh, because for most of the time I quite liked them. I liked the way Jeremy, James and Richard played off of each other, there was banter and there were insults but you never felt like it was anything serious. The specials were some of the best, they were holidays with the lads and it was generally fun to watch them prat about in foreign countries with crappy cars (except for the India special. And the Patagonia special, which both felt more staged and embarrassing than anything else).

I think the worst thing about the new presenters is I have nothing to base their performances on. For me, they're complete unknowns: I know LeBlanc was starring in some British comedy with Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Grieg, but I couldn't tell you what it was called or what it was about. Since F.R.I.E.N.D.S I haven't kept up with what he's been in, and I only know of the latter (which I refuse to spell out again because it takes far too long for a seven-letter word to reasonably type) because let's face it, that show was iconic. And the only reason I don't know about Chris Evans is because I don't listen to radio much, if at all.

So I think my mission before the next series of Top Gear starts will be to look at as much of LeBlanc and Evans's work as I can, a difficult feat not least because I keep getting distracted by the other Chris Evans...

But a message for the BBC: Don't try and ape the style of the three blusterteers that our new crew are following. You're never gonna get the same performance from star power as you are from essentially three media unknowns who came into Top Gear and immediately took a dislike to one another. I know they weren't especially unknown at the time - Jeremy "Motorworld" Clarkson especially - but they came from a point of relative obscurity to become household names and faces we saw every week on this one show. Top Gear became synonymous with Jezza, Hamster and Captain Slow and now that it can't be that, don't put together three celebrities and try to pretend they hate each other. Just don't.

Let them do the challenges, let them enjoy themselves, and let them do it their way. Keep the fun stuff in and keep what makes the show especially great: the ridiculous crap you have them do for our entertainment.

We've thrown out the two big apes and the one little ape and now we're getting in three new animals, ready to roll back the cage door and step out into the zoo of prime-time vehicle-based entertainment. And it's the job of the BBC and the show as a whole to crack that whip at them and say: Dance, monkey, dance! but do it your way!