Top Gear’s Greatest Behind The Scenes Moments Told By Script Editor Richard Porter

Top Gear was some of the greatest TV on, well, TV. And while the magic was made of course by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, the spells were written by Richard Porter, script editor of the BBC car show, which was once awarded an International Emmy Award for best Non-Scripted Entertainment. In his book, And On That Bombshell, he talks us through some of the unbelievable moments behind the scenes which we never saw on camera, and as Porter was there for the whole run of the show, including the awkward series with Jason Dawe at the very beginning, he has plenty of experiences to unload on us. Buy On That Bombshell Porter has since left the show after following the famous trio over to The Grand Tour, and while he worked there for a few seasons, he now has little or no input on the show at all. He's now presenting the Sniff and Smith Podcast alongside Fifth Gear's Jonny Smith, and has a YouTube channel by the same name, both of which are incredibly popular. https://youtu.be/4OxZzpyK9Rc Anyway, let's get onto the good stuff. Monkeys Driving Cars Top Gear did strange things, but some ideas were so out there that they were left on the office floor and then no further. One example of this was when researcher Jim Wiseman asked a simple question in the office while brainstorming ideas: "“I was wondering,” he said one day. “Could a monkey drive a car?” The extract from is book continued: We all laughed… and agreed that this should definitely be on the show. Jim gave a well-known monkey sanctuary a call. Strangely, they didn’t share our enthusiasm for getting one of their inmates to drive a car. “If I find out that you’re attempting this,” the monkey lady said angrily, “I will SHUT YOU DOWN.” That was the end of that one. Next Page The Gimp Becomes The Stig https://youtu.be/a4x0Dz00csA The Stig was first designed to be a voiceless racing driver, because according to Clarkson, racing drivers are boring. No one cares what they have to say, they only care about the lap time. So, when they were putting together the character of The Stig, they decided that it would be voiceless and faceless. He would be known as... The Gimp. Yeah, things were strange back then. Andy Wilman, executive producer of the show, said that if anyone found out who The Gimp was, they'd be fired. Eventually, we all found out that the first guy was Perry McCarthy. But he didn't like being called The Gimp, because that's a synonym of s*x slave. So, the name was changed to The Stig. This name came from what Jeremy and Andy (they went to school together at Repton High) called the new kids in school. Porter wrote the following in his book: The man we didn’t know was Perry would keep his crash helmet on throughout the day, no matter what. Watching him trying to eat was hilarious. He had to sneak off and slide his lid up just enough to quickly shove in a sandwich. Whenever he spoke, The Stig put on a French accent. Remarkably, the unconvincing subterfuge of an Essex man giving it the full Inspector Clouseau actually worked. Whisper went round the wider world that The Stig really was French. Next Page Jeremy Clarkson Nearly Died In A Submarine Leak Top Gear has had many none-starters, but when the nuclear submarine Jeremy Clarkson was about to step into for a film turned out to be leaking, it's rather important to stop and think about waiting a few days. The submarine was hit while out at sea, with Porter writing the following: The sub was stricken out at sea and the leak was not going to be fixed in a hurry, so the Top Gear team packed up and went home. Except, that is, for the chap who did our minicams. He was on board, having been taken to it a few days early so he could rig the craft for filming. The poor guy ended up staying on the leaky sub for a week. Next Page Going To War With Car Enthusiasts It's safe to say that Top Gear put more cars under the soil than on top. One specific model, the Marina, as destroyed by the Top Gear team, but fans of the car went mad when they found out. "Unfortunately, the Marina lovers of Britain didn’t share this casual attitude to the destruction of their favourite car and wrote furious letters to the office," Porter wrote. He continued: Our response was utterly childish. We decided that if they were annoyed then the solution was to annoy them some more. Another Marina was bought, and then a piano was dropped on it. The Marinaists were incandescent with rage. So we did it again. And then again. At some point during this very puerile attempt to annoy Morris people we got an email from someone complaining not about Marina destruction but about one of the pianos we’d dropped, saying it appeared to be quite a rare and interesting model. Perversely, we were quite mortified about this. Next Page How The Star In A Reasonably Priced Car Came About Porter tells us exactly how The Star In A Reasonably Priced Car came about, and it's quite a shock. Apparently, it was constructed around Bryan Ferry, who was going to be forced to drive a cheap car regardless of his suave reputation. He explains that the team had a scoring system for how they expected to be good guests. It would sit on the following awards, defined by Porter. Drove themselves to the studio. Turning down a chauffeured Merc spoke of a passion for cars, and so it would prove to be with notable self-drivers including Chris Evans, Stephen Fry, Simon Cowell and Jenson Button. Hung around afterwards, like Sienna Miller, Steve Coogan and John Prescott. Came with a minimal entourage. Roger Daltrey turned up with just one old mate, a plasterer. Top blokes. Made themselves at home. Michael Fassbender plonked himself on our tatty sofa as if he was at a mate’s. Matt LeBlanc never wanted to leave, or at least not until we’d concluded a hyper-nerdic conversation about Porsche engines. Gave the impression they wanted to be there. An amazing number of stars were fired up about being part of Top Gear. None more so than Tom Cruise. Next Page The Top Gear Dog Richard Hammond loves his animals, so when he got the Top Gear dog in 2006, him and the crew were very happy with their choice. Unfortunately, despite them loving the dog, she hated being in cars. She'd often get sick, and as Porter explains, usually over James May. And if you put her on camera, she'd fall asleep. Because of this, they slowly faded her out of the show, and Richard Hammond kept her until she passed away. She was well loved. Oddly enough, she occasionally receives fan mail. Next Page The Porsche Trouble https://youtu.be/DX11UMVaxQE When you want a car for a show like Top Gear, you go to the press office and ask nicely for one. So when the trio wanted a Porsche 911, they went to Porsche and asked with their tails between their legs. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” replied the PR man. “The only one we have is broken after some idiots drove it on a beach and got sand in the engine.” It was Top Gear that did that... Next: Worst Injuries Suffered During Top Gear And The Grand Tour Or: The Grand Tour's Worst Car Modifications