It’s time to send Clarkson’s Farm to the abattoir

It’s been 18 years since Jeremy Clarkson bought Diddly Squat Farm, but only seven since he decided to take over the daily running of the place himself. In that time, he’s had a very, very steep learning curve.

Whether it’s practical skills like learning how to till a field (after, of course, having to learn how to drive the tractor in the first place), or getting to grips with the seemingly endless amount of bureaucracy and governmental red tape that comes with modern farming, Clarkson has had to put aside his rather large ego, roll up his sleeves and get mucky in his own fields. Even some of his biggest detractors (including myself) have had to admit they’re impressed.

But the arrival of the fifth series of Clarkson’s Farm on Prime Video marks a change. After seven years of stewarding his own land, Clarkson finally seems like a proper farmer: his bull has successfully impregnated most of his cows, and his flock of sheep is growing. He’s even got the farming community (who weren’t best pleased with his new venture back in 2019) on board. Unfortunately for Clarkson – and indeed Amazon, which reportedly paid the presenter a whopping £160 million for the initial deal – it doesn’t make for very interesting television.

The series begins with the drama of an ambulance visiting Diddly Squat, rushing Clarkson to hospital after he suffered what he thought was a heart attack. Since this is a show about farming, however, he’s back in the fields before you can say “stent” – though with strict instructions from Doctor Lucy not to get involved in any work whatsoever.

So Clarkson joins us in watching other people – namely farmhand Kaleb Cooper, now a celebrity in his own right – look after his animals and tend his crops for him. The only thing worse than watching the former Top Gear presenter be good at his work, is to watch him do none at all.

The problem with Clarkson’s Farm in its current iteration is distilled into one baffling scene in which Formula 1 wunderkind Oscar Piastri turns up at Diddly Squat to create some content for his social media. Piastri wants to reverse a trailer attached to a huge tractor into a barn, something which – despite his prowess behind the wheel – he’s not too good at. Cooper is in his usual place, watching on in bemusement that someone can’t do something that comes second nature to him. The issue is that Clarkson is standing right next to him. Now, knowing that Clarkson is fully capable of reversing a tractor into a barn, watching him watching Piastri struggle with the task doesn’t sit right.

In the early series. the hilarity came from watching the Jeremy Clarkson – a man unashamed to share his opinions, no matter how nasty – put on the backfoot. Hark as he spends thousands on a Lamborghini tractor that he couldn’t even drive! Laugh at his doomed crop of wasabi! Remember when he bent that telegraph pole in half? Not only did it make for entertaining television, it also did wonders for Clarkson’s reputation. Maybe he wasn’t so bad, after all.

But with the uphill struggle of boots-on-the-ground farming now on terra firma, Clarkson’s Farm has lost what made it so special in the first place: making its star look like a bit of a plonker. Now, a majority of the series is made up of filler sequences that have nothing to do with farming whatsoever: The Corrs performing at Clarkson’s pub, a trip to a showcase of futuristic farming equipment, the creation of a Christmas grotto and nativity scene – all of which go off without a hitch (unless you count the goats trying to eat Baby Jesus from his manger). It’s not what we signed up for.

Clarkson is aware that his show is running out of steam and has said that cameras will only return to Diddly Squat for another year if there’s something worth filming. That idea appears to have already gone out of the window, however – a sixth series has already been confirmed. After that, I hope it gets sent to the abattoir.

‘Clarkson’s Farm’ is streaming on Prime Video