Having seen a few episodes of Jeremy Clarkson's car shows we decided to give Clarkson's Farm a go. It's quite different but very enjoyable. Since 2008, Clarkson has owned a 1,000 acre farm in the Cotswold Hills of central England (a stunningly scenic area I bicycled through in 1978 and have fond memories of). The setup is simple. The farmer who managed the acreage retired in 2019 and Clarkson decided to take on the job himself. The show follows him through one growing season - fall 2019 to the fall of 2020 - in eight episodes. A simple premise but, of course, complications ensue; one of which is that Clarkson knows nothing about farming and its challenging realities, the second is the arrival of Covid midway through the show.
Clarkson has no problem poking fun at himself and looking like an idiot even while giving others grief with his bluntness (a carryover from the car shows) and has assembled a wonderful "real" cast around him. Kaleb, a 19-year old farmer who works closely with him, is not shy about giving Clarkson a piece of his mind, and ends up the star of the series; Gerald, 72 years old, completely unintelligible and hilarious (Mrs THC and I would crack up every time he started talking), Cheerful Charlie, the unflappable agronomist, farm manager, and finance guy, who always arrived with bad news, and Clarkson's girlfriend Lisa.
There is a lot of humor with Clarkson also revealing a bit of his vulnerable side, which we have rarely seen before, but most of all this a love letter to the English farmer which makes us appreciate the difficulty of their life, the unceasing work needed to maintain a farm, and the absolute dependency on the weather which spells the difference each year between success and failure. I think that was Clarkson's real purpose in making the show.
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