TV Show of the Week: The One Show – Richard Hammond and James May’s interview 15/11/2016

Warning: Incoming rant.

The interview between Alex Jones and Angelica Bell and Richard Hammond and James May on Wednesday’s episode of the One Show couldn’t have been more awkward. There are many reasons why I dislike that interview, and all of them are aimed at the interviewers, which is a rarity. Normally an awkward interview is the way it is because the interviewee is acting strangely, or said something that stirred up a lot of heat, or is plainly disobeying the rules, and during all of those interviews, the person asking the questions remain calm and collected, just letting their guests get on with it, because at the end of the day, they aren’t the ones who are going to be slammed by the public, but the guests will. This time round, the interviewers, Alex Jones and Angelica Bell demonstrated how not to do an interview.

The entire situation is drenched in awkwardness from beginning to end. Starting with the BBC putting Richard and James in a cardboard car, which was clearly meant to humiliate the two, but I did enjoy their response when Alex and Angelica were confused why they were bringing it over to the sofa, “you built it; you want us in it, well, we’ll be in it,’ and they promptly sat down.

Before the first minute was over, Angelica pointed out that the Grand Tour was top secret because your “employers want to sell subscriptions”, which is clearly a dig at the fact that you have to pay Amazon to watch their show – whilst completely forgetting that the BBC is basically the first ever subscription service, that we are obligated to pay or facing jail time whereas Amazon is completely optional. You can hear James say in the background “a bit harsh”, which it was, and was the first of many unprofessional moments by the two interviewers.

The second moment was consistent throughout, when they kept interrupting Richard and James, preventing them from explaining themselves properly. Richard and James were asked these questions and they answered honestly. James was asked near the end if he made the right decision, and he said “yes”, but wasn’t allowed to fully explain why, except only briefly because Alex and Angelica kept trying to interrupt and make digs.

“Have you made any bad investments – not about pensions – but have you made any seriously – like thrown loads of cash at something and it’s gone wrong?” is one of the questions that Alex asks. It's fair to point out that they would have asked that question to anyone who they were interviewing, but... First of all, what a complete mess of a sentence. How indirect can you get when trying to ask if Richard and James regret signing the deal with Amazon. Second of all, that question was written by someone who works for the BBC, therefore the BBC asked that question, and if that don’t state how awkward and unprofessional the interview is, I’m not sure what will. Richard and James answered the question the best way they could – by being themselves – after which they were asked if they were cold called by anyone asking if Richard and James would like to invest in their company – and considering that this subject has been made quite clear that it’s not about pensions, I can’t help but declare that was yet another dig at the two.

The entire interview is a complete wreck from beginning to end because Alex Jones and Angelica Bell were unrelentingly unprofessional. The worst moment came right near the end when discussing when the show would air on Amazon Prime. Richard and James said that it would be available on Friday, but they didn’t say what specific time. I can understand why having a specific time would be helpful, but the show being available on Friday means that the show will be available at some point on Friday, and each episode afterwards will be released weekly, and anyone who has an Amazon Prime account will be able to watch it whenever they want, eradicating any true meaning behind a specific time. That’s how modern day works now. I don’t know the exact numbers, but plenty of people across the world don’t watch stuff at the time of its airing on TV. They watch it later in the day, or later that week, or next week, and with a large array of web based streaming services available today – including the BBC iPlayer, plenty of people don’t bother with what time the show is airing, just bothered with that it is.

After the horrendous and awkward atmosphere that Alex and Angelica created, trying to push for a time cannot be defended as much as it probably could have been, even less so when Alex said the most unprofessional sentence I’ve ever heard in a very long while. “You don’t have this at the BBC,” and Angelica can be heard whilst annoyingly talking over everyone else, “we would know what times… exactly,” said in such a way that she is appalled by the lack of organisation.

You can clearly see that Richard and James were being constantly hit by the wall of awkwardness, but they tackled it brilliantly. They pushed to answer the questions properly, and they make several comebacks – some possibly cryptic, but those can be interpreted differently by anyone watching.

Alex and Angelica have the right to dislike interviewing Richard and James for their own personal reasons, but they shouldn’t have let them get the better of them. They should have remained neutral and to the point, staying professional and keeping it together, Instead, it fell apart the moment Richard and James walked onto the show.

The best part about the entire interview, and by far the funniest part as well, was when it was mentioned that the BBC has a rival car show. The trailer for the Grand Tour on their official YouTube channel has 6.62 million views. The final episode of the last series of Top Gear with Chris Evans had only 1.9 million views. Where’s the rivalry?

Sorry about the rant.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)