Clarkson is a British chat show, presented by Jeremy Clarkson, airing from 8 November 1998 to 27 December 2000 on BBC Two. The show featured guest interviews with musicians, politicians and television personalities.
By 2026, the rights were held by North One Television, minus some of the music rights. They started releasing episodes weekly, edited to omit musical segments.
Format The show consisted of Clarkson talking about modern life and interviewing celebrity guests, often with a differing opinion from his own.
Usually there was an interview at the beginning and the end of the show. The time between the main interviews was filled with repeating segments with often at least one more guest.
Segments
Focus country In series 1 and 2, Clarkson focussed on a country, mocked their culture and particularly their culinary tradition, then interview a celebrity representative from this country.
In series 1, this was always one of the members of the European Union. In series 2, the scope broadened to all countries. This segment was dropped in series 3 to fit the shorter format.
Kitchen antics In addition to mocking the food of EU countries, in series 2 & 3, this expanded to inventive and dangerous ways to cook food and use kitchen implements. This included exploding vegetables on barbecues, putting unsuitable items in microwaves and attempting to slice a pizza with an oxyacetylene welding torch.
Fantasy dictators league Each episode in series 1, Clarkson updated a chart of the 8 dictators who ruled countries at the time. Their performance was tracked and updated every week, with the winner awarded a trophy: the "Pol Pot".
The original list were:
Abdulsalami Abubakar was removed from the list mid-series, after he set a date for elections and a return to democracy. He was replaced by British politician Peter Mandelson.
In the final episode, false subtitles were used to generate reactions to the league and insult Clarkson.
Public service broadcasts Starting in series 2, he broadcast short parodies of public service broadcasts.
Transmissions Episodes Series 1 (1998) Series 1 had 7 episodes, broadcast every Sunday evening.
Series 2 (1999) Series 2's run increased to 10 episodes. It was broadcast weekly on Sunday evenings with slightly varying times, starting between 9pm and 10pm. Sunday 28 November was skipped so BBC2 could cover the Snooker Championship final.
Series 3 (2000) Unlike previous years, series 3 lost its Sunday evening slot. Its 10 episodes were now only 30 minutes in length. It was broadcast every Thursday at 10pm.
Specials
Notes
References
External links