Top Gear hires female executive producer Lisa Clark amid reports Jodie Kidd will join Chris Evans fronted show
Evans says Clark is 'funny, sassy and super-experienced'
Could the new Chris Evans-fronted Top Gear be more female focused?
After rumours that Jodie Kidd is to join the presenting team, the BBC has confirmed Lisa Clark will become the show’s executive producer.
Clark will take over from Andy Wilman, who resigned from Top Gear a month after Jeremy Clarkson was dismissed by the BBC.
The comedy and entertainment producer, who has previously worked on The Big Breakfast, Shooting Stars and Vic & Bob’s House Of Fools, has earned a resounding endorsement from Evans.
“Lisa is as good as it gets when it comes to making big, important television shows. She’s funny, sassy, super-experienced and has always absolutely LOVED cars,” he said.
Clark was head of comedy at LWT before becoming a senior commissioning executive at the BBC.
In 2001, she set up Pett Television with Reeves & Mortimer, which produced a range of shows including Celebrity Dog School on BBC One, Tittybangbang on BBC Three, Angelos Epithemiou on Channel 4 and Matt Berry Does on BBC iPlayer.
Outgoing executive producer Wilman has teamed up with Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond to produce a new motoring show for Amazon Prime Instant, which is due to premiere in 2016.
In an email to Top Gear staff that was leaked to press in the wake of Clarkson’s sacking, Wilman said: “Our stint as guardians of Top Gear was a good one, but we were only part of the show’s history, not the whole of it. Those two words are bigger than us.”
It has yet to be confirmed which two presenters will be joining Evans in the driving seat when Top Gear returns to BBC2 later in the year.
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