Jeremy Clarkson’s ignominious exit from the BBC has claimed another casualty -–nothing to do with Top Gear but a running gag in BBC2’s satirical comedy about the corporation, W1A.
The award-winning sitcom, which returns to BBC2 next month, had to be hastily re-recorded to update a storyline about the Top Gear presenter in its opening, hour-long episode.
No reshoots were required but a change was required to the commentary, provided by Broadchurch and former Doctor Who star, David Tennant.
Insiders said the change was to reflect Clarkson’s “updated status” after the presenter, who does not appear on screen, was featured in a storyline in the opening episode referencing “damage limitation”. The joke makes it to the final edit, but in a different form.
John Morton’s show has had an uncanny habit of predicting real-life events at the BBC, with fiction sometimes struggling to outdo the reality of life in Broadcasting House.
Just days before the first series of W1A last year, Alan Titchmarsh announced he was giving up his ITV chat show. One of the first issues W1A’s head of values Ian Fletcher, played by Hugh Bonneville, had to face was the availability or otherwise of Titchmarsh for a new BBC show, Britain’s Tastiest Village.
Morton’s earlier BBC satirical hit, the London Olympics-set 2012, featured problems with an Olympics countdown clock, just as the real-life equivalent ground to a halt.
The second series of W1A covers such thorny issues as charter renewal with Fletcher focusing on its ramifications as chair of the Way Ahead Task Force.
A BBC spokesman said: “There have been no re-edits but a very small tweak has been made to the commentary to more accurately reflect recent events.”
