The Grand Tour producer Andy Wilman has opened up about the backstage dynamics of the show’s three stars Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond.
The petrolhead trio are set to hit screens again with their new Prime Video special, A Scandi Flick, marking the first episode of The Grand Tour’s fifth season.
Fans should expect plenty of the team’s trademark thrills and spills when the feature-length programme drops on the streaming platform later this month.
The trio’s long-time producer has spoken about Clarkson, May and Hammond’s secret sauce dynamic that makes for winning TV, saying it’s more like managing a band than a show.
He explained: “You could change Bake Off and get a new team in and because it's Bake Off you're watching, as long as that team is good enough, you're fine.
“Our show is always about those three, which means that they're central to it. Their relationship is intense, and it is more like a band.
“They do bicker, they do get opinions differing, because they're so much part of it. They have fallouts and then they come back together.”
Wilman said he can even imagine the trio as pensioners in a retirement home and “gets signs of it”, saying: “They're just bickering or concentrating on small things, but their relationship is fully there.
“They're still happy in each other's company. I think they see less of each other. They're not as together as much so it's still strong and still good.”
Their latest catastrophe-filled adventure has hit headlines for May’s high speed crash early in proceedings, which landed him in hospital for a night and forced co-stars Clarkson and Hammond to go on without him.
Left to their own devices, Hammond admitted that the trademark back and forth rivalry of pranks between the pair “ramped up”.
He said: “Because James temporarily incapacitated himself due to rank stupidity and forgetting where the brake pedal is, Jeremy and I just indulged in all out war between us.”
He continued: “We did get a bit bicker-y about navigation because when you can't see and wake up and discover you're not where you thought you were, that warrants an argument.”
Reflecting on their dynamic, May said each of their lone projects provided some much-needed respite from one another.
“It is quite good that we do our own thing,” he explained. “We can get all our needs out in our own programmes – we can talk as long as we want without somebody else interrupting or a message from Mr Wilman turning up.
“Then when we get back together, we're ready for the tomfoolery and the irritation. We needle each other which is part of what makes it work.
“You need some quality time alone making your travel show, your farming show or your garage show. You need that to recover, to show your true self and then we can get back together to do The Grand Tour and it's all back to normal.”
The Grand Tour: A Scandi Flick will launch on 16th September on Prime Video.
