Jeremy Clarkson's venture into farming has caused a storm. Fans of his show Clarkson Farm tune in avidly to watch the latest events at Diddly Squat Farm, and it's fair to say local villages have been impacted by the increased traffic as day trippers line the lanes as they head to his corner of Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire.
However, not all is as it seem on screen, according to one visitor. Reach reporter Alex Exans is a confirmed Clarkson TV fan.
"I've watched every episode of both [Clarkson's Farm] series - twice - and I've seen every episode of Clarkson era Top Gear as well as his newer car show The Grand Tour," he confesses. So, it was only natural that the journalist would want to see the farm for himself.
Test yourself here and see how many places in Nottingham you can recognise from a bird's eye view
Packing up the car, he made the pilgrimage from Yorkshire - Alex writes for Yorkshire Live - to the Cotswolds, a journey of some two and a bit hours. But he discovered it was "in a lot of ways very different to what you see on Amazon Prime Video".
And he declared: "There's a few bits of smoke and mirrors, some of which came as a definite surprise." In Alex's own words, here's what he discovered on his trip including seven 'fake' things Clarkson doesn't reveal on the show.
1. The Diddly Squat Farm Shop sign is cardboard
"It looks like a no-expense spared shiny wooden sign welcoming folk to Diddly Squat Farm Shop. But in fact, the now famous signage is made with cardboard lettering. I know, because I stood next to it for a photo and the A in Farm had been bent down. I reached out to touch it and was surprised to find it's mere corrugated grey cardboard lettering nailed to the wood. The tricks of TV eh!"
2. Clarkson's girlfriend Lisa Hogan does not staff the shop till
"I mean, Jeremy Clarkson's girlfriend, who also stars in Clarkson's Farm alongside him, must do at some point because there's footage of her behind the till in Clarkson's Farm series one and two. But on our visit - and a lot of others I've seen - there were several staff members that had nothing to do with the TV show and had clearly been hired to staff the shop during the time between filming seasons. So if you're taking a trip to Clarkson's Farm hoping to see Lisa, Jeremy or Kaleb, you're probably going to be disappointed."
3. The Farm Shop really is tiny
"One person I spoke to inside the farm shop described it as 'the size of a postage stamp'. That might be an exaggeration but it really is tiny inside, which is why people queue for hours just to have the chance to walk through it for a few minutes. In terms of the usable floor space, the whole thing is probably no more than about 10ft by 8ft. It hardly looks like the Sistine Chapel on camera, but you can't get a sense for just how tiny it is until you're stood inside it."
4. The 'TV set' is very different to the tourist attraction
"On Amazon Prime Video, the shop and the farm space is carefully and neatly managed. There's tidy rows of stock and nothing on the walls behind the till. In real life, the shop is absolutely groaning with both stock and souvenirs - tea towels with stuff like 'The Best Farm... In The World' are draped across every surface, there's piles of posters and postcards at the till and there's even knitted dolls of Jeremy and Kaleb sat on a shelf behind the till. Other items like Diddly Squat Gin and a freezer full of ice cream aren't seen on the show. It would appear the place is 'dressed' for TV filming and then all the bells and whistles for tourists are put inside once filming is over and visitors are invited to come clean the place out.
"Outside, there's portaloos in the car park and several overflow emergency car parks are open and allowing cars in, none of which is seen on the programme, and nor are the two hour queues of people lining up along the grass outside the shop. Sure, there's been times where we've seen the farm busy on the TV programme, but I don't recall ever seeing queues of people in the field - yet I learned there's long lines daily in the time it's open to the public.
"Jeremy Clarkson's humour remains visible everywhere though. A Hawkstone delivery van says 'Urgent Delivery' on the bonnet, but it's written backwards so it can be read from a rear view mirror - like an ambulance!"
5. There's a burger van, a pop up shop and stalls selling lavender!
"Speaking to a fellow visitor who told me she's a regular customer to the farm shop, she said that during very busy periods like half terms, there's a 'pop up shop' set up behind the farm shop building to serve more customers. Another thing you don't see on TV is that there's a burger van, a bar serving beer and cider and even a local lavender flower seller all set up on the tables in the lambing shed. Again, it feels like it's set up differently for the non-filming periods, but there's a lot packed into the space that was never once shown on camera (unless the burger van is going to be a season three spoiler!)."
6. There's messages from Jeremy on the side of the lambing shed - bring a pen
"Another thing never shown on camera is the sets of signs that adorn the side of the lambing shed to give messages to people queueing for the bustling farm shop. Several laminated signs are stapled to the wall with messages about how Jeremy is from Yorkshire, or explaining that the 'pheasants have red cheeks because they've eaten my wasabi'. Around them, there are literally thousands of messages scrawled on the planks of wood from farm visitors, with everything from 'James May is a d***o" to 'We love Pepper' (the cow Jeremy decided to keep as a pet). It left me wondering if James is planning on scrubbing them all off - as some are quite rude - before filming resumes or the cameras will simply be kept away from the shed walls for series three."
7. There's a campsite right next door
"Standing in the campsite entrance, you can literally read the farm shop sign. It would appear that the campsite isn't Jeremy's property which would explain why it isn't promoted on the show. Jeremy does make reference to a campsite nearby in season one, where he explains to Charlie Ireland that he could make a killing selling farm produce to campers next door. But it's not mentioned at all in season two and I didn't recognise the sign as it's never been shown on TV, and I didn't expect it to be SO close by. It's literally a stone's throw away and there's no way you'd know that from watching the programme, almost like the camera angles are pointed to avoid capturing it at all."
Alex's conclusion
So what did Alex, a fan and first-time visitor, make of Diddly Squat Farm? He said: "Of course, it's a TV show, so it's absolutely to be expected that things are moved around for filming, that the shop is redesigned for its time on camera, or that when Jeremy makes an announcement that the farm is open for visitors, some things will need to be put in place to make it work on a large scale when the cameras aren't rolling. So I'm certainly not suggesting anyone's being deceived, but it was interesting to get a peek behind the scenes and see what it was really like on the ground - and the reality is a little different to watching it on a TV."
He added that while the farm shop was pricey, he "thoroughly enjoyed the trip and there really aren't many opportunities in the UK to walk straight onto a TV set from an international streaming hit - and eat your souvenirs afterwards".
READ NEXT:
Latest forecast as Met Office announces 48-hour snow warning for Nottinghamshire
Application put forward to create new travellers site in Nottinghamshire
Good Morning Britain's Susanna Reid fears 'walkout' after Ranvir Singh's comment to Richard Madeley
Major development plans at former popular Nottinghamshire garden centre site
