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'

Thursday 30 July 2015 11:47

Jodie Kidd currently presents The Classic Car Show on Channel 5

(Getty Images)

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 former Top Gear trio have signed a contract to present a new motoring show for Amazon Prime Instant

(PA)

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.

Jenson Button reportedly joining Chris Evans as Top Gear host

“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.

Top Gear: Who will join Chris Evans behind the wheel?

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1/7Top Gear: Who will join Chris Evans behind the wheel?

Top Gear: Who will join Chris Evans behind the wheel?

Jodie Kidd

What they call a dead cert: Jodie Kidd will be confirmed as the new May – the six-foot-something former model being too lofty to be the new Hammond. But does she want it? Doing the rounds of reality TV contests (Strictly Come Dancing, Celebrity MasterChef, The Jump) suggests a woman in search of a future in television, and assuming that the BBC is eager to rid Top Gear of its blokey image – and Evans has said that the new line-up will include a female – then Kidd would be ideal: she drives a Maserati, posted one of the fastest laps in the programme’s “Star in a Reasonably Priced Car” and, as a veteran of the fashion industry, has probably encountered her fair share of misogyny before

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Top Gear: Who will join Chris Evans behind the wheel?

Guy Martin

In retrospect, Channel 4’s Speed with Guy Martin looks like an extended audition reel for the Top Gear job, as the former motorcycle racing champ attempted to beat the world speed record for a hovercraft (as well as for a motorcycle on water!), while, like Hammond, Martin is a survivor of high-speed crashes. A television natural, Martin’s bushy sideburns will appeal to Top Gear fans who still groom like its 1974

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Top Gear: Who will join Chris Evans behind the wheel?

Dermot O’Leary

Being a “safe pair of hands”, as Dermot has proved on The X Factor, is one thing – but unless the BBC secretly wants to kill off its troublesome export milch cow, then that’s the very last thing Top Gear needs. After all, recklessness, along with (lest we forget) some excellent, attention-grabbing motor journalism, is what has amassed fans in more than 200 countries worldwide. And will O’Leary really want to crease those impeccable suits?

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Top Gear: Who will join Chris Evans behind the wheel?

Philip Glenister

The BBC drama Life on Mars, in which a policeman finds himself trapped in 1973, proved that Philip Glenister would be game to imitate James May’s old-rocker denim look. But what has grabbed bookies’ attention is Glenister’s more recent role as presenter of Channel 4’s For the Love of Cars, in which old motors are found and restored. Still, it seems unlikely that he’ll be turning down acting gigs because he’s too busy racing Ford Cortinas across the Gobi desert

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Top Gear: Who will join Chris Evans behind the wheel?

Steve Coogan

Chris Evans would drown if he tried to trade banter with Coogan, a far sharper and funnier man who is also a petrolhead, and has driven around Italy with Rob Brydon. Those are miserable odds in the circumstances

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Top Gear: Who will join Chris Evans behind the wheel?

Rowan Atkinson

Who says bookies don’t have a sense of humour – and I mean the odds they’re offering, not a taste for Mr Bean? A wealthy car lover, collector and sometime racer, Atkinson has appeared before as a “Star in a Reasonably Priced Car”, driving a Ford Kia. His other car is a McLaren F1

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Top Gear: Who will join Chris Evans behind the wheel?

David Beckham

Beckham would instantly rid Top Gear of its fashion-dinosaur image – but would he be too busy self-grooming in the rear-view mirror to actually put his foot on the pedal? And let’s face it, Becks is always more impressive when he doesn’t open his mouth. The new Stig, perhaps?

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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.

Jodie Kidd, Philip Glenister and Guy Martin 'in advanced talks' with Top Gear bosses

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.

Read more: Top Gear team Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May heading to Amazon Prime for new car show

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