Top Gear of the Pops

Top Gear of the Pops was a one-off special of Top Gear, broadcast in the evening on 16 March 2007. It was shown as part of the Comic Relief 2007 appeal, mixing the usual elements of Top Gear with Top of the Pops, the music chart show that was cancelled in 2006. The standard Top Gear opening sequence had its car footage replaced with vintage clips of Top of the Pops, and, while The Cool Wall was mentioned at the beginning, it was not included in the broadcast.

The programme was produced for Comic Relief as a replacement for a quiz show, A Question of Comedy, which had been recorded some months earlier but withdrawn because the involvement of Jade Goody as a contestant was felt inappropriate following the controversy surrounding her appearance on Celebrity Big Brother 2007.

Performances

Lethal Bizzle

Presenter Jeremy Clarkson cut Lethal Bizzle's song short by unplugging him mid-performance. Clarkson also dubbed Lethal Bizzle "Jizzy Tissue", and blamed his genre of rap music as being responsible for the demise of TOTP.

Travis

Apart from McFly, Travis managed to deliver a regular and incident-free performance. They performed three times during filming to make sure everything was perfect. The band performed their single "Closer", which was labelled by James "The kind of thing that should be on TOTP, unlike that "Jizzy Tissue" crap."

Supergrass

Supergrass performed with comedian Adrian Edmondson on guitar. Supergrass were made to put up with bizarre "special effects" administered by the Top Gear presenters: live birds in front of and on the stage, excessive dry ice artificial fog, and finally strong winds from a wind machine, which blew Edmondson off the stage. This led to a number of complaints by viewers who were concerned about the birds' welfare. Coincidentally, drummer Danny Goffey's father, Chris Goffey, used to present Top Gear, a fact pointed out during the show.

McFly

During the show, boy band McFly had to write and perform a song which contained the three specific words: "Sofa", "Hyundai" and "Administration". The song could not include the words 'love', 'baby' or 'heart'. The band then performed the song towards the end of the show, using a basic 12 bar blues pattern. The song, which had the overall title "Sofa, Hyundai, Administration" was included on CD2 of their single "The Heart Never Lies".

News

• Clarkson argued that more cars should have a place where you can plug an iPod in, and later said that the iPod headphone wire always gets tangled
• Hammond discussed Phil Spector's trial - in particular the fact he is accused of murdering someone called Clarkson.
• May said he couldn't understand a statement made about Coldplay
• Hammond discussed festivals
• Clarkson talked about his dislike for Basement Jaxx
• The presenters took a look at Snow Patrol's video "Open Your Eyes".
• May mentioned the re-forming of Genesis and The Police. Clarkson argued with an audience member, saying that liking Phil Collins did not make her a Genesis fan.
• Hammond stated a list of songs that can't be played on Hospital Radio which include Cutting Crew's "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" and The Verve's "The Drugs Don't Work"

The Top Gear band

The "Top Gear band" consisted of the three presenters (none of whom is a professional musician, although May has a degree in music, and is a pianist and flautist) accompanied by former The Darkness front man Justin Hawkins. They performed Billy Ocean's Red Light Spells Danger.

Top Gear band line-up

• Justin Hawkins – vocals
• James May – keyboards
• Richard Hammond – bass guitar
• Jeremy Clarkson – drums

In addition there was a backing guitarist, a keyboard player and three backing vocalists.

Ratings

On its first showing in the UK on BBC Two as part of Comic Relief night, the programme obtained 6.1 million viewers and was the most watched show in its timeslot with a 28% audience share.

References

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