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Chris Evans to host Top Gear

UK media personality takes driver's seat for BBC, with other presenters yet to be confirmed.

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UK media personality Chris Evans (pictured, right) has been announced as the new host of Top Gear, following the departure of Jeremy Clarkson.

BBC has confirmed Richard Hammond and James May are also not returning.

Evans, 49, known as a motoring enthusiast, hosts BBC Radio 2’s breakfast show, but was previously a TV presenter on Big Breakfast.

“I’m thrilled, Top Gear is my favourite programme of all time. Created by a host of brilliant minds who love cars and understand how to make the massively complicated come across as fun, devil-may-care and effortless. When in fact of course, it’s anything but and that’s the genius of Top Gear‘s global success,” said Evans.

“I promise I will do everything I possibly can to respect what has gone on before and take the show forward.”

Kim Shillinglaw, Controller, BBC Two and BBC Four, added: “I am so delighted that Chris will be presenting the next series of Top Gear. His knowledge of and passion for cars are well-known and combined with his sheer inventiveness and cheeky unpredictability he is the perfect choice to take our much-loved show into the future. Chris is a huge fan of Top Gear and has great respect for the craft and work ethic of one of the best production teams in the world. He knows the phenomenal attention to detail it takes to make a single sequence of Top Gear, let alone a whole series. He is already full of brilliant ideas and I can’t wait for him to get started.”

James May tweeted: “Well: best of luck to @achrisevans and the future of Top Gear (b. 1977). That’s a ballsy call, frankly, and to be admired.”

Production on the new series will start in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile BBC Knowledge will air the two never-before-seen episodes that were shot for series 22 in Australia at the same time as the UK. The extended 75 minute episode, which also features studio links from Richard and James, will premiere on Monday 29th June.

14 Responses

  1. It won’t be Top Gear without Clarkson, Hamster & Captain Slow. It will be like trying to watch Fawlty Towers without Basil, Manuel and The Major.

  4. So this guy with the blonde hair is taking Clarksons place? Seriously? Can’t see Top Gear lasting for long.

    So when is the new show with Clarkson and team going to be made? Surely the fans will just watch that.

    1. Firstly he’s ginger. Secondly you clearly know nothing about him and are just judging him on his (wrong) hair colour.

      He’s about the best choice they could have made. An established broadcaster who has plenty of cross generational appeal and experience in hosting live TV, anarchic TV and also making it too (he’ll also be one of the exec producers). He may now be on a relatively safe radio breakfast show but his background is in much more off the wall television, and last week he fronted a one-off revival of his 90’s show TFI Friday to huge plaudits. Until they got Lewis Hamilton on for the dullest interview ever.

      1. Well thanks for the blurb Brekkie but I still can’t see why people will watch it. This Evans just seems wrong. Replacements rarely work on a top TV Show. People like the originals and ring-ins can rarely fill the void (I’m thinking of Two and a Half Men as a good example of a bad ring-in).

        If they develop another show for Clarkson, May and Hammond, Top Gear will be toast. Sorry if this offends you Brekkie.

        1. I suspect Clarkson, May and Hammond will struggle without the power of the BBC behind them. There is a long history of presenters in the UK leaving the BBC and effectively remaking the same show for more money on commercial networks, but not taking the viewers with them. Two months on Clarkson, May and Hammond already seem like yesterdays news.

          Obviously Evans is only one part of the picture – if they get the other hosts wrong it won’t work but he is a great start. Indeed I’m not really exagerating when I say if it wasn’t for the sort of shows Evans was involved with in the 90s the Top Gear format we know now probably wouldn’t exist.

  5. I;m not a huge fan of Chris Evans (or Clarkson for that matter), but he (Evans) has an amazing car collection (including a 250 GTO Ferrari) so with any luck, we’ll see a close up view of some of them. He is one of those “Shock Jocks” in the UK, so he will have a lot of fans, so it will be interesting to see how he goes.

  9. A good move but lets face it, even if the BBC were to give a brand new Camaro to every viewer, there’ll still be massive howls of disapproval from Clarkson fans.

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