Love fills the air and it’s wedding season, which means opening the closet and pulling on some strides that once looked mint on the dance floor. But that was several years ago. A few Christmas turkeys have expanded your waistline and there’s a moment of truth when your buttocks tell the fabric “ye shall not pass”.
That’s how I felt two weeks ago. After receiving a mysterious phone call from a former Top Gear producer, I drove to Thruxton race circuit where I was invited to step into the familiar white Stig suit that I wore on the show for eight years. My feet went through fine, but then my behind got in the way.
The log-jam didn’t go unnoticed by the 12 or so original Top Gear crew members forming a semi-circle around me. “You’ve shrunk it”, I insisted. “Er, no, we haven’t.” This was the first time I had seen them all at the same time since I left the show in 2010, so I had hoped to make a good impression.
I checked the front zip was fully opened and clamped my buttocks tight enough to produce diamonds from coal, but to no avail. I pictured myself strangling my personal trainer. Then, Eureka: I noticed that some imbecile had tied the waist belt at the back and, once it was unfastened, the suit slipped on like a silk glove.
For legal reasons I should point out I that was not reappearing as The Stig. Well, not exactly. I was, however, making a film to promote the arena show “Clarkson, Hammond and May Live”, which was known as “Top Gear Live” until the boys split with the BBC. Yes, it’s all very confusing.
Clarkson, Hammond and May Live
In the parallel universe created for me by Top Gear’s former production team, I was lucky to have clothes at all. My home for the past four years had been garage 22 at Thruxton, where I’d slept rough with my shopping trolley and a case of special brew.
Clarkson was the first of the trio to arrive at the circuit. I hadn’t seen the big man since he called me something that you can’t print in a family newspaper, so I considered slipping on my gum shield just in case.
His tallness loped across, a little greyer, but essentially the same bloke who used to set fire to everything he touched. And while I don’t want to make too big a deal out of a civil handshake and a “top of the morning to ye” because the gesture had already been made, it felt great to be back, if only briefly. Building bridges is one of the most satisfying aspects of being human.
We were eventually joined by two other unemployed people. To be fair, James May has been making cooking videos for the interweb; let’s pray he finds work soon. Meanwhile, Hammond had clearly spent his spare time cultivating a space-age goatee.
I lay on a cardboard box in the fetal position, nursing a bottle of meths through some fingerless white gloves. Phil Churchward, former Top Gear series director, chortled through various takes of my beleaguered state, finally conceding that “this just looks like how you really live”.
Thankfully, there was more to my day than looking smelly. There was work to be done and cars to be thrashed, but we were all just laughing too hard to get around to it. It felt more like a birthday party. Or was it a Top Gear wake?
Either way, the sell-out audience that attended the live show in Sheffield at the weekend didn’t seem disappointed. And Rowland French, the show’s creative director, reckons it's the best show they've ever produced. There are stunts, supercars and explosions, and that’s just inside the VIP green room.
You might think that a live show would grow stale after a decade on the road, but stunt sequences invariably adapt and get slicker with each performance. The drivers learn the hot spots of every arena: when to look away from the blinding lights, when to push, and the places where concrete barriers jut out from behind the curtains.
This live tour appears to have given the presenters a new lease of life. The recent “fracas”, ironically, might be the best thing that could have happened to them. They seemed lighter than they did when I last saw them, revelling in the fresh air of not knowing what they will be doing with the next six months. I suspect that’s about to change. It looks like garage 22 might remain vacant for a little longer.
Originally Posted by speedpimp
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