S.Imon Cowell and Jeremy Clarkson. Mocking Si and screaming Jezza. Together they survived prime time in 00, the embodiment of a midlife crisis in their father’s jeans. Now the terribly hairy couple seem to be turning into some kind of two-headed television monster. Haven’t we suffered enough?
At the news that Simon Cowell is preparing to start a new auto show, one could almost hear a nation’s eyes roll in unison. According to the popular press, The Karaoke Sauron (copyright Marina Hyde) is developing a rival to the BBC’s longstanding Top Gear.
He should “keep an eye on potential producers and talent”. In other words, Amanda Holden and Louis Walsh had better go to Halfords for some mesh-backed auto gloves.
Cowell has time for his hairy hands right now. The X factor became the Ax factor last month and not sooner. Nowadays, customers prefer friendlier, cozier talent shows like Bake Off and Strictly, or imported South Korean high-concepts like The Masked Singer and I Can See Your Voice. Why waste time booing tearful teenagers when you can watch Joss Stone dress up as a 7-foot sausage?
The sister show Britain’s Got Talent is easy on it thanks to ingenious variety turns and overseas acts. Its more cynical freak show elements are soured by the lighter, funnier touch of Ant, Dec and David Walliams.
The X Factor’s point-and-pisstake cruelty, however, was well past its expiration date … as were gas-guzzling supercars and unnecessary travel.
One of the ubiquitous tabloid “sources” (possibly Sinitta in a funny voice) said, “Simon is a huge car enthusiast and a car show is something he’s always been interested in. At the moment, [it feels like there is] a particularly big appetite. “
Does that really exist? Even Clarkson has tacitly admitted that the era of pedal-to-the-metal driving programs is over. His post-Top Gear project for Amazon, The Grand Tour, has been reduced to semi-annual road trip specials.
Jeremy Clarkson, who has attracted more attention lately as a farmer than as an auto expert. Photo: Blackball Media / PA
Nowadays he spends more time taking his tension-building breaks on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Post-pandemic viewers care more about Clarkson slipping on a cow dung than yelling over caravans and damned foreigners.
Besides, Cowell is into cars at all? He owns half a dozen, sure, but he has to spend his estimated £ 385 million net worth on something. The dazzling toothed Mughal spends more time chain smoking and insane cackling in transatlantic private jets and in the back of limousines than behind the wheel. I suppose he broke his back last year after falling off an electric bike. Does that count?
Cowell enjoyed an imperial streak of television but now seems tragically absent. A 61-year-old Alan Partridge-like, incurably lagging a decade behind, wondering why his boot-cut pants and Cuban heels don’t cut it anymore. It’s like flipping through his mental Rolodex of male menopausal hobbies and happening to get involved in driving a car. Hello, it could be worse. He could have put on a show about triathlons or paleo diets or approached Pilates teachers half his age.
Cowell doing a sub-Clarkson auto show is a prospect almost too depressing to think about. Do you remember his previous attempts to leave the talent genre with shiny floors: the Food Glorious Food cooking contest, the soap drama Rock Rivals and the game show Red Or Black? Don’t ring a bell? Cowell’s misguided engine project, like these shows, feels like another completely forgotten disaster.
Pop gear? The Model X Factor? Does the UK have taillights? Whatever it is, it’s a no from me.
