Top Gear's popularity has kept it on air for nearly 10 years, despite - or more likely because of - its controversial hosts. Scott Kara talks to the short one.
There were rather stern instructions before talking to Top Gear's Richard Hammond that he would not answer any questions about Mexico. Or, one presumes, Mexicans, the people he labelled "lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight oafs" in an episode which screens on Prime at 7.30pm this Sunday. Although the offensive comments have been omitted from the version New Zealanders will see.
Hammond was, to put his comments in perspective, making reference to his belief that cars from a certain country also reflect the characteristics of the people from that place.
Yes, it was outrageous, and the sort of tongue-in-cheek humour you expect from Top Gear. But the Mexican tirade from Hammond and his co-presenters Jeremy Clarkson and James May (who labelled Mexican food "refried sick"), provoked outrage.
The Mexican ambassador to Britain complained, and fellow TV star and comedian Steve Coogan, who has featured on Top Gear three times, launched a lengthy slating of the lads in the Observer. He declared his old mates bullies ("three rich, middle-aged men laughing at poor Mexicans") and saying their humour can no longer be passed off as "harmless fun".
The trio also got into a little bit of strife from the Muslim community for wearing burqa disguises during their Middle East special (which screened here a few weeks ago), where they were dropped off in Iraq and tasked with driving cross country to Bethlehem, in Israel.
It turns out Hammond is not averse to talking about anything. However, the wily wee fella is a dab hand at steering clear of mentioning Mexicans and puts the show's outrageous scripting stunts down to being purely accidental. Yeah, right.
So Steve Coogan probably won't be appearing on the show again anytime soon?
Oh, I know. Where did that come from? That was such a surprise. I came into the office and everyone said, 'have you seen it?' I said, 'no'. But he got the hump didn't he? I mean I've been a broadcaster for 23 years and I haven't spent 23 years trying to appease Steve Coogan - I don't know, his cage was rattling and he was choking on his breakfast cereal.
I know we're not meant to talk about Mexicans. So lets talk about Muslims perhaps? And all the other things you get complaints about.
I think we're a useful towel sometimes for people's innate desire to complain and to be offended. In that instance we serve quite a useful purpose because people want to be offended. In actual fact we never set out to offend, it's not in our nature to do so, but we do sometimes and it happens, it's an accident. And it's like any other accident. It does happen. I had a big accident on Top Gear and health and safety investigated and they came to the conclusion that it was an accident. It happens. And if you are doing a television programme like ours, that accident might be that a tyre bursts at 314 miles an hour, or it might be that someone accidentally says something bad and someone gets offended. But, equally, people want programmes to be close to the mark, they want things to be provocative.
It's coming up 10 years for the new Top Gear format, so how do you stay fresh and funny apart from saying outrageous things that get you into trouble?
I don't know. But at the core of the show there's the boss, Andy Wilman, Jeremy, James, me. Beyond that there is not a massive team of people but they are very precious to us and their ability to generate ideas is great - and ideas come from anyone and anywhere in the team. And it just happens naturally. So we've reached a point now where we can identify very quickly if an idea is right for us. And maybe what we've done with Top Gear is come up with an attitude, therefore it's an attitude that can be applied to anything, can't it? So essentially by that theory we could keep going forever because if it's an attitude, and a way of looking at things, then we can always find something else to look at.
And the stunts you do are both dangerous as well as cheeky. So have you got any plans for more "Man-love rules OK" style stunts in series 16?
I don't think we quite appreciated how dangerous that was at the time [when he had "Man-love rules OK" painted on his car while driving through Alabama during the US special]. But the stunt stuff and all that, we actually have a pretty good safety record, because we've done some pretty crazy stuff and we're all alive.
Are car companies scared of lending you these cars to review - and to drive?
They mostly have the sense to realise that if they want to sell their cars then they need them to be talked about. They need them to factor into the global car landscape, and therefore if they're not talked about on Top Gear then you could argue, well, the car doesn't really matter, so in that sense they've got no choice, they've got to be featured. If the car is slated for being shit, then they will know that as well as you and I do, but somebody somewhere will want it so let's get it out there and get it seen and the best way to do that is to get it on Top Gear.
But what about you guys wrecking the cars? Let's face it, you're not the most reliable of test drivers.
Oh they're big companies, they can soak it up. No, because we don't take the piss, and car manufacturers wouldn't lend us cars if they thought we were just going to hit them with hammers for no reason, because where is the entertainment in that? If you are trying to do something outrageous consciously, you'll never out-imagine what an audience can imagine for itself, so we try to do things for real and our ideas are always rooted in something genuine. If, in the course of that, the vehicle gets damaged, well, fair enough, it happens. But we wouldn't go and borrow a Ferrari and ruin it, because that's not clever or entertaining.
LOWDOWN
Who: Richard Hammond
What: Top Gear, 16th series on Prime, Sundays, 7.30pm
-TimeOut
