Clarkson's Farm

Clarkson's Farm is a British television documentary series about Jeremy Clarkson and his farm in the Cotswolds. The first season was released by Amazon Prime Video on 11 June 2021.[1] The series documents Clarkson's attempts at running a 1,000-acre (400 ha) farm in the Cotswolds, and it has received largely positive reviews.

Clarkson's Farm
GenreDocumentary
Directed byGavin Whitehead
Starring
  • Jeremy Clarkson
  • Kaleb Cooper
  • Lisa Hogan
  • Charlie Ireland
  • Gerald Cooper
  • Kevin Harrison
  • Ellen Helliwell
  • Alan Townsend
  • Dilwyn Evans
Narrated byJeremy Clarkson
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series2
No. of episodes16 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time40‒54 minutes
Production companiesExpectation Entertainment
Con Dao Productions
Amazon Studios
Release
Original networkAmazon Prime Video
Original release11 June 2021 (2021-06-11) –
present (present)

Clarkson's Farm was renewed for a second series,[2] which was released on 10 February 2023.[3] The second series became the most-watched original series on Amazon in the UK in 2023.[4] In October 2022, the programme was renewed for a third series.[5]

Diddly Squat Farm

The farm was formerly part of the Sarsden estate in Oxfordshire. Jeremy Clarkson bought about a thousand acres (4 km2) in 2008, including Curdle Hill Farm. The fields were mostly arable, growing a rotation of barley, rapeseed and wheat. These were farmed on a contract basis by a local villager named Howard until his retirement in 2019. Clarkson then decided to attempt the challenge of farming the land himself.[6]

The farm was renamed Diddly Squat by Clarkson to indicate its lack of productivity,[6] as "diddly squat" is slang for "the least amount" or "nothing".[7][8]

Cast

Main cast
  • Jeremy Clarkson: a motoring journalist, television presenter and author who became famous as the host of Top Gear and later on The Grand Tour.[9] Having moved to Oxfordshire, he became part of the Chipping Norton set and the owner of newly renamed Diddly Squat Farm.
  • Kaleb Cooper: a young farm worker born in Chipping Norton in 1998. Cooper farms on his own account in Heythrop, but was engaged by Clarkson to assist him.[10] He has previous experience working on Clarkson's farm before Clarkson took over as the owner.[11] He mainly advises Clarkson on the technical details of using farming equipment and helps with numerous general tasks. He has rarely left the village of Chadlington and its surrounding areas, with the furthest place he regularly travels to being Banbury and has never travelled abroad. He has two children with his fiancee.[12]
  • Lisa Hogan: an actress and Clarkson's girlfriend who assists with the farm and runs the farm shop.
  • Charlie Ireland: sarcastically referred to by Clarkson as "Cheerful Charlie", Ireland is a professional agronomist and land agent who advises Clarkson on farm management. He understands the agricultural aspects of the crops, the complex details of government regulation and the financial consequences. Rachael Sigee, writing for the i newspaper, described him as "chronically sensible ... a stickler for the rules who delivers increasingly bad news with the politely firm manners of a parish vicar."[13]
  • Gerald Cooper: The farm's "head of security" and a specialist in the construction and maintenance of dry stone walls, which form 40 miles of boundaries on the farm. His conversations with Clarkson are amiable but often incomprehensible due to his strong West Country accent.[12] He helps Clarkson harvest the farm's grain, which he has been doing for over fifty years. He is of no relation to Kaleb Cooper.
  • Kevin Harrison (series 1): the chairman of the National Sheep Association and a veteran sheep farmer who advises Clarkson on purchasing and later tending to his flock of sheep.[14]
  • Ellen Helliwell (series 1): the shepherdess engaged by Clarkson to tend the flock of sheep which he acquired to graze his set-aside meadows. Her duties include lambing and shearing.
  • Alan Townsend (series 2; guest series 1): the head builder for various projects on the farm including the farm shop, barns for the farm animals and the farm restaurant.
  • Dilwyn Evans (series 2; guest series 1): a local veterinarian who helps care for the farm's flock of sheep and later its cows. He performs various tasks including checking the animals for diseases and assisting with the birth of calves.

Other cast
  • Georgia Craig: a policy advisor from the National Farmer's Union who advises Clarkson.
  • Viktor Zaichenko: a Ukrainian beekeeper who sells honey bees to Clarkson and helps manage the farm's apiary.
  • Simon Strong: a neighbouring grain farmer who rents a combine harvester to Clarkson.
  • Tim and Katy Coles (series 2): local cow breeders who sell heifers and beef cattle to Clarkson and later rent him a bull.
  • Paddy and Steph Bourn (series 2): local egg farmers known as "Mr and Mrs Cacklebean" who sell hens, chicken coops and cockerels to Clarkson.
  • Emma Ledbury (series 2): a local dairy farmer who lost half her herd of dairy cattle to bovine tuberculosis and provides the farm shop with milk products.
  • Pip Lacey (series 2): a professional chef hired to run the farm restaurant.

Episodes

Overview
SeriesEpisodesOriginally released
1811 June 2021 (2021-06-11)
2810 February 2023 (2023-02-10)

Season 1 (2021)
No.TitleOriginal release date
1"Tractoring"11 June 2021 (2021-06-11)
Clarkson buys the equipment needed for arable farming – a tractor, cultivator, seed drill and other attachments. He spurns a traditional Massey Ferguson to buy a mighty Lamborghini R8.270 but finds that this is too large and complex for him to master easily. He tries to innovate but Kaleb scolds him about the results – irregular tramlines. Meanwhile, their cultivation and planting schedule is interrupted by torrential rain.
2"Sheeping"11 June 2021 (2021-06-11)
The farm has 300 acres which are set aside from crop farming. The DEFRA subsidy scheme requires these meadows to be mown annually and so Clarkson decides to get a herd of sheep. He buys 78 North Country Mules at auction and finds that they are difficult to control, even with an electric fence and barking drone. After trouble with lameness and the complexity of breeding with his rams, Leonardo and Wayne, he recruits Ellen to be the farm's shepherd.
3"Shopping"11 June 2021 (2021-06-11)
Clarkson sets up a farm shop to sell farm produce. This constitutes potatoes, which need to be sold quickly, because otherwise they would rot. Clarkson uses social media to advertise the shop resulting in a large number of customers.
4"Wilding"11 June 2021 (2021-06-11)
Clarkson decides to leave portions of his farm for nature, a process called wilding. He uses an excavator to dig a pond and form a wetland area. He builds a dam on a nearby stream for water for the pond and adds 250 brown trout. He installs bird boxes for owls. He obtains four bee hives for honey for the farm shop and to pollinate his crops.
5"Pan (dem) icking"11 June 2021 (2021-06-11)
The COVID-19 pandemic hits the country. Farm workers are key workers and are able to keep working. The lambing season starts and Clarkson assists in the births. Clarkson decides to plant vegetables in a field instead of barley as pubs are shut and he believes that beer, which barley is used to produce, will not be sold in the same quantities. He re-opens the farm shop to sell the remaining potatoes, but customers are scarce.
6"Melting"11 June 2021 (2021-06-11)
A dry spell in April–May 2020 affects Clarkson's crops. He obtains water from a nearby stream, filling a bowser towed by the Lamborghini tractor, but this proves inadequate for his vegetables. He gives a virtual tour of his farm for an inspection for Red Tractor accreditation by Assured Food Standards. The 20 mature trees he had planted shed their leaves in dry conditions. The sheep are sheared, but each fleece is worth less than £1.
7"Fluffing"11 June 2021 (2021-06-11)
Lisa stocks the farm shop, selling locally sourced produce. Initially, nothing in the shop originates on the farm, so Clarkson extracts honey from the bee hives. He harvests his wasabi plants and tasks Kaleb with selling them in London restaurants; Kaleb is unsuccessful in this endeavour as well as receiving a parking violation. The wasabi is placed in the farm shop where it does not sell and eventually rots.
8"Harvesting"11 June 2021 (2021-06-11)
Clarkson has logistical problems as the barley and rape are both ready for harvest at the same time. He manages to hire a combine but then has trouble storing the barley. The wheat, however, is good quality and fetches a good price from the local mill. Because the crops brought in £90,000 less than the previous year, due to the poor weather, Clarkson's profit on the year's arable farming is a meagre £144.

Season 2 (2023)
No.TitleOriginal release date
9"Surviving"10 February 2023 (2023-02-10)
Clarkson attempts to diversify his farm's revenue sources (having made only £144 in the previous year) in an effort to increase his profits. He decides that his primary way of doing this will be a new herd of cows and promptly purchases several of the animals. However, the timing of when they will bring in money and the necessity of building an enclosure for them causes problems for Jeremy and Charlie. Meanwhile, inspired by the success of the farm shop, Clarkson has the idea to open a restaurant in the abandoned lambing barn to sell his beef and lamb, but he must deal with the cost of converting the barn and getting approval from the local council.
10"Cowering"10 February 2023 (2023-02-10)
Clarkson's herd of cows begins to settle in on the farm, but things immediately begin to go awry. The cows aren't keen on the idea of a fence and quickly escape, and when Clarkson attempts to wean the calves, they too break out and cause chaos. In addition, the new roosters brought in to help fertilize the soil also prove to be difficult to handle.
11"Schmoozing"10 February 2023 (2023-02-10)
Clarkson is ready to submit his application for his farm restaurant; he must use gentle navigation and respect for bureaucracy in order to keep his interests afloat. This, of course, is not easy for Jeremy, so he must be careful.
12"Badgering"10 February 2023 (2023-02-10)
Clarkson is informed by Charlie that his cows are in danger of contracting Bovine Tuberculosis from the badgers on the farm. He decides to resolve the issue by killing the creatures but is informed that this is illegal in most cases. Faced with a danger to his herd, Clarkson must hope for the best.
13"Council-ing"10 February 2023 (2023-02-10)
After weeks of waiting, the day of judgement for Clarkson's restaurant is at last here.
14"Counselling"10 February 2023 (2023-02-10)
In light of the council's rejection of his restaurant in the previous episode, Clarkson must pick up the pieces and get back on track if he hopes to ever make a profit on his farm.
15"Scheming"10 February 2023 (2023-02-10)
Clarkson, determined to open his restaurant, decides to approach things from a different angle. Figuring that obtaining legitimate permission will be too costly and time-consuming, he and Charlie decide that secrecy and speed is their best option. After learning from Alan that an old barn on his property could be converted without prior planning permission, Jeremy decides to set up shop there. However, the plan's success is hinging on the council not objecting to anything about the site, meaning that nearly all the work must be completed in just 48 hours in order to prevent a formal complaint from being lodged. Elsewhere, a last-ditch effort to get Pepper, Clarkson's favorite heifer, pregnant may force a difficult decision.
16"Climaxing"10 February 2023 (2023-02-10)
Clarkson and his team must work harder than ever on secret preparations and last-minute arrangements in order to ensure the success of his restaurant. However, the inevitable delays and various problems threaten to allow the council to shut them down for good. Will their efforts pay off or are Clarkson's restaurateur dreams doomed?

Season 3

The show was commissioned for a third season in February 2023.[15]

Reception

On Farming Today, Clarkson said that he listens to the BBC programme's podcast. The opinion of the active farmers interviewed was favourable.[16]

I thought it was remarkably good and entertaining. ... Many farmers will think that this is putting them and their experience over in a positive way ... There were some proper laugh-out-loud moments ... I am so inspired by the way that Jeremy Clarkson has talked about the industry and the people who have helped him ...[16]

Other farmers were also reported to have shown an "overwhelmingly favourable" reaction to Clarkson's Farm.[17] The sheep farmer James Rebanks said that the farming community "all loved that programme", and that Clarkson had done more for farming in one series than 30 years of the BBC's long-running farming programme Countryfile.[18] Viewers have found the programme educational and entertaining, and that "they now feel much better informed about farming".[19] The National Farmer's Union has awarded Clarkson 2021 Farming Champion of the Year as "a vocal champion for the British farming industry", and producing that year a show that showcased the realities of farming and one that "has really resonated with the public".[20] Clarkson and his farm assistant Kaleb Cooper won the Flying the Flag for British Agriculture award at the British Farming Awards.[21]

Joel Golby, reviewing for The Guardian, found Clarkson's verbal signalling of his jokes by lowering his voice tiring, but the format, in which his blunders are corrected by no-nonsense country folk, works well, "It's simply, just ... really good TV".[9] Lucy Mangan wrote a different review for The Guardian a week later, but only gave it one star out of five. She was tired by Clarkson's role as an ignorant buffoon and called the show "wearisome, meretricious rubbish ... The series amounts to less and less as time goes on."[22]

Anita Singh reviewed the show for The Daily Telegraph. She liked the apparent authenticity of Clarkson's involvement in the farming, "...when you see Clarkson despairing at his crop failures, or yelping with delight when he helps to deliver a lamb, it feels genuine." She liked the supporting players, such as Kaleb and Charlie, and that "Clarkson’s gone soft, and it makes for surprisingly good viewing."[23]

Suzi Feay gave the show five stars in the Financial Times. She especially liked "...some of rural England’s more surprising characters ... Clarkson’s Farm features some unique types that are rarely spotted on screen."[12]

Hugo Rifkind, reviewing for The Times, likes Clarkson's "honesty of self" and appreciated both the good fun and the increasingly earnest engagement, "...you get to watch a familiar face grow smitten with his new life, coming to understand the responsibility of feeding Britain ... a quite lovely documentary series about life on a farm..."[24]

Marty Meany reviewed Clarkson's Farm for Goosed.ie, describing Jeremy as a "grown man playing Farming Simulator in real life", but whether you "love him or hate him, Clarkson’s Farm sees Jeremy return to his very best" after years of creating "blatantly scripted" television. Meany gave the show four and a half stars in his review.[25]

Following the release of the show on Amazon, the show was a popular success online, being rated five stars on Google.[26]

Clarkson faced a severe backlash from the people of Chadlington over the opening of the farm shop, which resulted in a 3-mile-long (4.8 km) traffic jam and necessitated the attendance of the police to handle the disruption in traffic. Later that day he took to Twitter, writing: "People of Chadlington. I’m truly sorry about the traffic around our farm shop last weekend. We are doing everything we can to improve the situation".[27][28]

Ratings

According to Barb, the first episode of the second series of Clarkson's Farm broke viewing record on Amazon in the UK and became the most watched original series on Amazon. It was watched by 4.3 million viewers on TV in seven days, with more UK viewers watching the episode than The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which had 3.2 million viewers for its first episode in 2022.[29] The first episode was ranked No. 16 across all channels.[30] 3.8 million watched the second episode (ranked No. 27 the same week), and 3.3 million watched the third (ranked No. 40).[30][4] A total of 7.6 million individuals had watched the show across its eight episodes over 28 days, which made it the most-watched show on Amazon Prime in the UK.[31]

The ratings for the first series was not available since Barb only started measuring viewership for on-demand video platforms such as Amazon in November 2021.[32]

References
  1. James Croot (11 June 2021), "Clarkson's Farm: Sheep bring Amazon's Tour king down to earth in Grand new show", Stuff NZ
  2. Marty (21 July 2021). "Clarkson's Farm Confirmed For Second Season". goosed.ie. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  3. Sarrubba, Stefania (8 December 2022). "Clarkson's Farm season 2 air date has finally been revealed". Digital Spy. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
  4. Kanter, Jake (23 February 2023). "'Clarkson's Farm' Breaks UK Viewing Records For Amazon Prime Video After Meghan Markle Scandal". Deadline.
  5. Morris, Lauren (28 October 2022). "Clarkson's Farm renewed for season 3 with "new characters" joining". Radio Times.
  6. Steven McIntosh (30 May 2021), Jeremy Clarkson reveals 'heartache' filming farming TV series, BBC News
  7. "diddly-squat". Merriam-Webster.
  8. ""diddly-squat, n. and adj."". OED Online. Oxford University Press. March 2023. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
  9. Golby, Joel (5 June 2021), "I hate to admit it, but Jeremy Clarkson's farming show is really good TV", The Guardian
  10. Norris, Miranda (26 June 2021). "'I can't walk through Chippy without being recognised': Kaleb Cooper on his newfound fame". Oxford Times.
  11. Pritchard, Emma-Louise (21 July 2021). "Clarkson's Farm on Amazon Prime: Who is Kaleb Cooper, Jeremy Clarkson's sidekick?". Country Living.
  12. Suzi Feay (4 June 2021), "Clarkson's Farm on Amazon Prime is an agricultural gem", Financial Times
  13. "Clarkson's Farm, Amazon Prime Video, review: Not only surprisingly tolerable, but insightful and fun", i news UK, 11 June 2021
  14. Olivia Midgley (21 May 2021), "Sheepdog drone and OSR 'nightmare' - first glimpse of Jeremy Clarkson's farm", Farmer's Guardian
  15. "Will there be a Clarkson's Farm season 3?".
  16. Howard Shannon; Anna Hill; Guy Smith; Emily Norton (17 June 2021), Farming Today, BBC Radio 4
  17. Blackett, Jamie (9 August 2021). "'Jeremy is just like you': what real farmers think of Clarkson's Farm". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022.
  18. Singh, Anita (10 October 2021). "Jeremy Clarkson 'did more for farmers in one TV series than Countryfile managed in 30 years'". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022.
  19. Sitwell, William; Blackett, Jamie (11 October 2021). "Clarkson's Farm vs Countryfile – how the townie petrol head won over Britain's farmers". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022.
  20. "Jeremy Clarkson named 2021 Farming Champion of the Year". Farming Life. 8 October 2021.
  21. "Jeremy Clarkson wins farming award for Amazon series Clarkson's Farm". Oxford Mail. 23 October 2021.
  22. Mangan, Lucy (11 June 2021), "Clarkson's Farm review – Jeremy the ignoramus rides again", The Guardian
  23. Anita Singh (11 June 2021), "Clarkson's Farm, review: The man's gone soft! Even Top Gear haters will find him likeable here", Daily Telegraph, archived from the original on 12 January 2022
  24. Hugo Rifkind (12 June 2021), "Off Clarkson goes and buys the biggest tractor he can find", The Times, p. 7
  25. Marty (15 June 2021). "Clarkson's Farm: Is This New Amazon Series Worth Watching?". goosed.ie. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  26. Zasha Whiteway-Wilkinson (20 June 2021), "Jeremy Clarkson reacts as his farm show becomes massive hit", Gloucestershire Live
  27. Andrea Oldereide (20 June 2021), "Jeremy Clarkson fans cause chaos with three hour queue to meet him at farm shop", Daily Mirror
  28. "@JeremyClarkson". Twitter. 22 June 2021. Archived from the original on 21 June 2021. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
  29. "Clarkson's Farm breaks viewing records for Prime Video". Farming UK. 6 March 2023.
  30. "Weekly top 50 shows". Barb. Select ratings for week 06 Feb 2023 - 12 Feb 2023
  31. "What People Watch: Clarkson's Farm". Barb. 29 March 2023.
  32. "Barb introduces SVOD and video-sharing platform measurement". Barb. 30 November 2021.
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