We Could Stroll Away After Season 4 On Amazon

EXCLUSIVE: Andy Wilman appears to be like like a person who’s not seen daylight for some time. Peering down the barrel of a Zoom name, he’s acquired a contact of man flu after a spell in his enhancing bunker. Wilman is perpetually “in an edit.” He’s presently honing the ultimate episode of The Grand Tour, however he may simply as nicely be taking a look at rushes from Clarkson’s Farm Season 4. It’s his joyful place.

We speak simply days after Season 3 has been confirmed as Amazon Prime Video’s highest-rated UK authentic, sitting acres forward of lavishly-budgeted sequence together with Fallout and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Energy. Not dangerous for a present by which the centerpiece storyline is the birthing journey of a pig named Baroness. Clarkson’s Farm was, in Wilman’s phrases, conceived as Clarkson’s “solo album” away from Richard Hammond and James Could, however it might not be unreasonable to recommend that it has develop into larger than the band.

Every of the primary three seasons has chronicled a yr on Diddly Squat, Clarkson’s 1,000-acre farm nestled within the historical stone villages of the Cotswolds. As soon as higher referred to as a member of the Chipping Norton set (a rich Cotswolds clique that features ex-prime minister David Cameron), the presenter is now extra synonymous with drilling grain into fields in his Lamborghini tractor. The transformation was not inevitable. Wilman admits to having critical jitters in the course of the making of Season 1 in 2019. May Clarkson cope with out his co-hosts? Would he be a fish out of water however with out the comedy?

“I don’t assume we noticed the true magic till the sheep arrived,” Wilman says, reflecting on the anarchic arrival of drone-herded mutton in Season 1. “And clearly Kaleb [Cooper] bollocking Jeremy. These are the moments the place you go: alright, we’ve actually acquired one thing right here.” 

Kaleb, for individuals who don’t know, is Clarkson’s expert assistant. He’s certainly one of a solid of characters that fell into Wilman’s lap throughout filming and have develop into as a lot part of the present’s success as Clarkson himself. There’s Charlie Eire, the fastidious Diddly Squat land supervisor; Gerald Cooper, the incomprehensible farm handyman; and Lisa Hogan, Clarkson’s girlfriend of seven years. Hogan has emerged as a hero for farmers’ wives in Britain, with one voicing a BBC Radio 4 ode to Lisa on the morning of Wilman’s interview. She mucks in, runs the farm store, and takes no s*** from Clarkson, which Wilman thinks feminine viewers are significantly grateful for.

This group is what grounds Clarkson’s Farm and provides it that the majority treasured of TV commodities: authenticity. “All people desires to be in that little world as a result of it’s a little bit of a Nineteen Fifties world the place an enormous downside is a cow that’s in bother, or a dam that’s not mended. Little or no of consequence occurs,” Wilman says. “It’s like an escape pod. Overlook all of your troubles and be on Clarkson’s Farm.”

Season 2’s story arc follows Clarkson’s combat in opposition to native planning authorities as he seeks to construct a Diddly Squat restaurant. Season 3’s throughline was not so apparent, however Clarkson got here up with the thought of splitting the farm with Cooper and competing to see who can take advantage of cash from the land. It’s a wheeze straight out of his High Gear days, however Wiman says the thought can also be a testomony to Clarkson’s eye for “journalistic element,” protecting viewers knowledgeable and giving them an perception into the brutal economics of farming. Clarkson could also be wealthier than his counterparts — a truth Clarkson’s Farm typically addresses head-on — however that doesn’t imply he’s any much less invested within the farm’s success.

“He’s a stressed man, he wants work, he wants issues to do. And he loves that farm, he’s actually at peace in that place,” Wilman says of his pal. Farm’s success on Amazon has been a cheerful by-product: “He by no means noticed this coming in his profession [at the age of] 64. He thought his large finish second was that we finish The Grand Tour efficiently.”

Season 4 is presently taking pictures and Wilman, regardless of being a confessed “glass half empty” man, appears comfy with the progress. He’s unsure whether or not there will probably be a Season 5 — and never essentially as a result of they’re on the mercy of Amazon’s inexperienced mild. “I’ve acquired no emotions on whether or not there’s a 5 or not,” Wilman says. “Jeremy’s the identical. He’s like: after we’ve acquired nothing left to say, let’s stroll away.”

This angle was not a luxurious they loved final yr. Amazon was incandescent about Clarkson’s Meghan Markle column in The Solar newspaper and Selection reported that the streamer was ready to cancel the presenter. Sources say the report caught Wilman and colleagues off guard as they have been filming Season 3, nevertheless it proved to be vast of the mark. Amazon did finally renew Clarkson’s Farm, however solely after some spicy feedback on the Edinburgh TV Competition, the place executives claimed the present was larger than the presenter. Wilman doesn’t fully disagree. “To me, he’s just like the tent pole, it might all collapse with out him, however he does want a foil,” he says. 

In the end, few content material chiefs would cancel a sequence on the up. Clarkson’s Farm was watched by 5.2M on its return, making it the second largest present on a streaming service within the UK this yr. Does Wilman assume it may persuade Jeff Bezos to affix the Chipping Norton set? “I believe we’d have to point out him the place it’s,” he smiles. “I hope he watches it as a result of he should be going: ‘Bloody hell. This present doesn’t price me quite a bit and will get these numbers.’”

There was speak of Amazon licensing outdated episodes of Clarkson’s Farm to a British broadcaster and it’s not arduous to think about the present discovering a house in ITV’s primetime schedule, for instance. It’s, in some ways, heartland public service broadcasting. Unsurprisingly, Wiman is supportive of a second window sale: “I wouldn’t have an issue with it. It’s made the noise, so I simply need as many individuals as attainable to look at it. What’s Amazon’s enterprise mannequin about protecting it to themselves or pumping out an earlier sequence to get extra folks to look at the later ones? That’s as much as them. We’re simply right here on the f*****g coalface making the following factor.”

And with that, Wilman disappears again to his edit suite.