Critic Reviews

There is obviously a limit to how relatable a multimillionaire can be – especially when he has owned a farm for more than a decade and never bothered to find out how it actually works. Combined with Clarkson’s trademark blustering arrogance, this show could be insufferable. And yet, it is somehow engaging, funny, insightful and surprisingly enjoyable.

Clarkson’s Farm doesn’t feel fake. In fact, when you see Clarkson despairing at his crop failures, or yelping with delight when he helps to deliver a lamb, it feels genuine.

There is endless amusement in the odd-couple relationship between the clueless landowner and Kaleb, his assistant: while the knowledgable Kaleb unabashedly informs Clarkson about every one of his many stupid farming errors, his boss hits back by ribbing the younger man about his lack of wider life experience.

While some of the encounters here feel a bit staged — Clarkson arguing with his girlfriend Lisa over the state of the farm-shop car park, for instance — it may gratify those who think Clarkson a bully to hear the tongue-lashing administered by Kaleb. Or the caustic if largely unintelligible asides from old farmhand Gerald Cooper, with his hedgerow-thick rural accent.

Clarkson’s Farm is, at its heart, a bromance. Richard Hammond and James May have been swapped out for the brass-necked Kaleb and the level-headed Charlie, but the dynamic remains a satisfactory foil for Clarkson’s excesses. The final product is not dissimilar to something the Diddly Squat Farm Shop might sell: over-packaged and slightly artificial, but undeniably delicious.

The series is unscripted but there are moments here when you suspect that subjects are being brought up, or lines being fed, at the producers’ request, which occasionally gives the Clarkson and Kaleb scenes a stagey feel. ... But it remains thoroughly enjoyable viewing.

There aren’t many popular entertainment series that give airtime to the thorny issue of agrarian monocultures. Somehow it also manages to be highly compelling viewing. This is very well-made television, and perfectly balanced.

You can quickly see his appeal – the bemused grump dismayed at the state of things if rarely offering any practical solutions. It makes Clarkson’s Farm wildly interesting on an anthropological level, as if you’ve stumbled into a club who’d never want you as a member. But then there’s also the rest of the show – its ramshackle pleasantness and easy humour. Whatever your misgivings as to the man behind it all, you’ll find it tricky to resist.

This ensemble cast is what makes the show work so well, alongside a neat editing job that expertly turns months of footage into a coherent narrative.

Here in season three the very real challenges faced by Diddly Squat give him true pause, and that creates an effective balance against the usual gripes and galavanting. We’re invested in how Clarkson’s going to solve his farm’s host of problems, and particularly enjoy it when the solution as he sees it meets real world whammies.