PAApparently, Jeremy Clarkson’s legal team are so scared of getting sued by the BBC that they’ve handed him a massive list of things he can’t do or say.
This ridiculous list includes: complimenting Namibia’s scenery, saying the word ‘cock’, and calling the news ‘the news’.
Amazon PrimeAndy Wilman – Clarkson’s old pal and producer of his new Amazon show The Grand Tour – said lawyers had warned the presenters they risked being sued by the BBC if they incorporated elements that were too similar to Top Gear, The Telegraph reports.
Wilman said:
They got funnier and funnier. We went to Namibia to make a big film. The lawyers got out a film we had done [for Top Gear] in Botswana. The lawyers go through everything and they said, ‘There’s a scene in [Top Gear] where you’re in the middle of the Okavango and you go, “This scenery is beautiful”, so watch that you don’t do that.
So we were in the desert in Namibia and we had to go, “for legal reasons, this scenery is shit”.
The new show’s studio – a big tent they move to a different location for each episode – will include a leaderboard showing how well different cars had performed, but with no handwritten lap times for fear of standing on Top Gear‘s toes.
Discussions became particularly ridiculous when Wilman was forced to examine James May’s use of the word cock, as he frequently said it on the BBC show.
Wilman also accepted that he and the presenters had a ‘broken relationship’ with the BBC before Clarkson was sacked for punching a producer, but thinks the corporation should have fined the presenter rather than axing him.
The new show is set for release at the end of Autumn, and no doubt the BBC will have their beady eyes on it for any legal infringements.
