Top Gear's new host, Chris Evans. Photo / Getty Images
Top Gear's new host, Chris Evans. Photo / Getty Images
Top Gear's new host is both loved and loathed. Here, two fans of the motor show debate whether Jeremy Clarkson has met his match.
Michael Hogan says YES:
From TFI to TG. After weeks of rumours, rumblings and wild speculation - not to mention bare-faced, flat-out denials from the man himself - ginger jack-in-the-box Chris Evans has been unveiled as the new front man of Top Gear. The BBC Radio Breakfast Show host has signed a three-year deal to lead an all-new line-up on BBC Two's most-watched programme.
Replacing controversy magnet and fan favourite Jeremy Clarkson is a job that requires balls of steel - and a contract of much brass. Evans will be paid millions, but if he makes a success of the motoring magazine show, which earns pounds 50 million per year for BBC Worldwide, he'll be worth every penny.
The beleaguered Beeb has been under fire from Top Gear devotees since Clarkson's much-discussed departure. Now the corporation has come out fighting by pursuing and bagging its man. Evans was surely its first choice all along. Not just renowned for his love of cars but one of the finest broadcasters of his generation, he's the right man for the job - and arguably the closest thing there is around to Clarkson - if less likely to say something offensively un-PC or punch a producer over a meat-based buffet mix-up.
Evans is the only candidate with the charisma, chops and sheer chutzpah to step into Clarkson's size 11 driving shoes. As such, he represents the franchise's best chance of survival.
Ever since his early Nineties radio days, Evans has been a trail-blazing broadcaster. When he made the move to TV on The Big Breakfast, Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and TFI Friday - which returned for a one-off special just five days ago - he established himself as an instinctive, innovative talent.
Like Clarkson, he's a quick-witted, sure-footed, unpredictable presenter who is always unapologetically himself - and not just a genius in front of the camera either. Usually with a hand in all areas of his programmes, he has the popular touch and a creative knack of coming up with original ideas and influential formats.
Evans is an unreconstructed bloke who likes blokey things: beer, golf, girls, rock'n'roll, spectacular stunts, anarchic comedy and, of course, cars. Yet he's winningly self-deprecating and engaging about it, rather than bullying, boorish or boring.
Throughout his colourful career, Evans has brought a frisson of danger. Yet, on his current mainstream vehicles, Radio 2 and The One Show, he toes the BBC line just enough, without losing what made him an electrifying, energetic screen presence.
The final half-hour of TFI last Friday proved he's a dedicated petrolhead: Evans interviewed F1 champion Lewis Hamilton and Clarkson himself, before sending his mother and a Stig lookalike on a lap of the Top Gear track.
Proud owner of a collection of vintage vehicles, Evans has landed his dream job: being paid handsomely to drive fast cars and be chief engineer of laddish larks. He needs to reshape the show in his own image and win over the Clarkson loyalists. But if anyone can do it, this carrot-topped force of nature can. And on that bombshell ...
Gerard O'Donovan says NO:
OK, so at least it's not Piers Morgan. Or the dreaded Adrian Chiles. Or the ever-delightful-if-rather-overstretched Clare Balding again. But Chris Evans really is the wrong choice for Top Gear.
It's not that he's not likeable. He's great on the radio. His revamped (or should that be resuscitated) TFI Friday last week was a hoot. Until, that is, Evans got Lewis Hamilton on for a chat about cars and I nodded off from the tedium. And I wasn't alone, as a slew of irate Twitter responses attested. Just as well he's ruled himself out for the Top Gear job again, I thought. Hmmm.
That is the thing about Clarkson. He makes cars fun, and interesting, even for people who couldn't give tuppence about cars and speed anywhere other than on Top Gear. On that evidence, Evans cannot. Sure, he is chirpy and everybody knows he owns some very expensive cars. He even had some spectacular fallings out with both Channel 4 and the BBC in the distant past. No doubt this qualifies him as a bit of a bloke in the minds of some BBC bosses. Because everybody knows that's what audiences liked most about Clarkson.
But Clarkson's blokeishness is of a different order. As is his craggy contempt for authority of every kind. By contrast, Evans is the essence of superslick light entertainment, happy to look like he's pushing boundaries but making sure he keeps his toes well inside the line. And audiences know the difference.
As such, the BBC has gone for a safe, obvious, steady-as-she-goes option when a complete outsider - Guy Martin, for instance, who has engine oil oozing from every pore - would have been far better for Top Gear in the long run. Even the most die-hard fan would have to admit the show was getting stale. Its default option of bigger bangs, flashier stars, ever more spectacular foreign forays couldn't go on forever, and had pretty much peaked by the disastrous Argentine road trip last Christmas.
If it hadn't been for the extraordinary chemistry of Clarkson and his co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May (and former producer Andy Wilman, the guiding hand behind much of the show's success) - it would have run out of steam long ago. And that sort of chemistry is not easy to replicate. Among those already suggested as sidekicks for Evans are fellow Radio 2 presenter Dermot O'Leary and former model and racing driver Jodie Kidd. But it would be nothing short of farcical were they to attempt to reproduce the existing format in its entirety. It would not work.
Not least because it's what Clarkson and Co will be doing, wherever they head next. And it really is the fans who matter here. The early signs are not good. One Telegraph commenter summed up the feelings of many: "Top Gear was my favourite, I'll never watch it with that pillock in charge!"
