Presenting Top Gear after Jeremy Clarkson is like being the new Doctor Who, and is the most challenging thing he has ever done, new presenter Chris Evans has said.
In an interview with the BBC’s Top Gear magazine, Evans revealed the furore over Clarkson’s removal from the show in March, after a “fracas” with a producer, had almost put him off the job.
“I honestly didn’t think I’d get the phone call – I was amazed that I did, to be honest,” he said. “I ruled myself out because I didn’t want to be part of all the nonsense that was going on. But then the situation changed, and I wasn’t stepping on anybody’s graves or toes.
“I was actually in the middle of preparing for TFI Friday and I talked to Will [Macdonald from the Channel 4 show] and he said, ‘Why would you not do this?’ And that’s the question. It wasn’t ‘Why would you do it?’ but ‘Why wouldn’t you?’ If I make television programmes for a living and love motor cars and love the biggest challenge in the world, why wouldn’t I do it?”
He added: “There have been 34 presenters before me, so it’s a bit like Doctor Who.”
Evans was coy about who was in the running to replace Clarkson’s fellow presenters James May and Richard Hammond. The BBC director general, Tony Hall, has said he would like to see women join the presenting team.
“There’s a lot of talk about talent at the moment,” Evans told the magazine. “Honestly, it’s not the furthest thing away from my mind, but it is quite distant compared to directors, producers.”
He continued: “I have got to get that team, because, without the team, it doesn’t matter what presenters we get. It’s nearly in place. We’re so very close.”
Evans said he would not cut popular segments from the show, famous for regular items like star in a reasonably priced car: “Nothing has to [change], but some things will. I can’t tell you what precisely. But it would be silly to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
The 49-year-old said he was well aware of the pressure there would be to make the show work without Clarkson – the subject of a million-strong petition to the BBC from viewers calling for his reinstatement.
“This is, without doubt, the most challenging thing I have ever done in my career,” Evans said, comparing it to the BBC Radio 2 show he took over from Terry Wogan.
“People kept saying [after Wogan] I had ‘big shoes to fill’, and they’re saying it again now. I don’t mean they’re wrong or they’re right, it’s just such a predictable thing to say – and, by the way, Jeremy is very tall, so they’re even bigger shoes,” said Evans.
Top Gear Magazine is on sale from Wednesday
