Want to know when the BBC motoring show Top Gear returns to televisions? Step this way ─ lead presenter Chris Evans has just spilled the beans.
The new Top Gear, which will be headed-up by the Radio 2 presenter, will go on air on the 8th of May (Sunday) 2016 on BBC 2, the filming of which will stop on the 5th of May. The first season will be comprised 16 episodes and Evans has signed a deal for three years.
It is still unclear who will be joining him (our money is on lots of presenters), but Formula One and MotoGP host Suzi Perry is a favourite and F1 star Jenson Button has also been mentioned. TT nutter Guy Martin is said to have turned the role down.
Speaking in an interview on James Martin’s BBC1 show Saturday Kitchen, the 49-year-old admitted producers had “already started making the films”, adding that, “we’re going to America to our first inter-continental in January”.
Top Gear lost Jeremy Clarkson after a fight broke out between him and a producer, who has since left the show and is suing for racial discrimination. Subsequently Richard Hammond and James May followed suit after failing to renew their BBC contracts.
Now the ex-Top Gear trio and executive producer Andy Wilman are creating a motoring show for Amazon’s digital content service. The show is yet to be named or given a release date, but we know filming has already began and that it will run for at least thirty six episodes over three seasons.
The deal is said to have cost Amazon £160 million. It is likely the show will be released in late 2016 or early 2017 or, if Clarkson is feeling vengeful, around the same time as Beeb’s reinvented show.
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