Matt LeBlanc’s latest adventure in British television sees him joining Chris Evans as co-host of BBC motoring show Top Gear.
LeBlanc, who apparently had reservations about joining the six-part show, was lured onto it with a fee of £500,000 of British taxpayers’ money.
But before its first episode has even aired, the programme has been plagued by problems.
Senior producers have clashed, Evans and Le Blanc are said not to get on, and a lack of suitable film in the can has delayed its transmission date by at least three weeks to May 29 or perhaps later.
Then last month, in a crass stunt worthy of Joey Tribbiani himself, LeBlanc was lambasted for burning rubber around the Cenotaph, the sacred war memorial in central London where he performed a series of handbrake turns, scarring the road with tyre marks. The BBC has decided never to broadcast the footage, wasting a cool £100,000 of public money.
Good times. pic.twitter.com/znT27ptjJb
— Matt LeBlanc (@Matt_LeBlanc) March 13, 2016
Some Top Gear insiders had already been worried that LeBlanc is too “boring” a personality to carry it off as a Top Gear host.
Following this PR disaster, concerns grew.
But to make matters worse for Top Gear, I have been told that a former colleague of Evans is on the brink of going public with concerns about his past behaviour.
The fact is that the presenter’s past misdemeanours as a lead broadcaster of popular British entertainment shows over the last 20 years make him a risk by today’s post-Jimmy Savile standards.
Take his outrageous admission in a 2005 interview that he would sometimes unzip his trousers during meetings of his company Ginger Group Media to show off his penis to colleagues.
At the time he said: “I haven’t done it for a while, but I will do it again… If you get your willy out, it’s the funniest thing in the world.”
My new Top Gear Friends. More to come #TopGear pic.twitter.com/zoGj1cwdNy
— Chris Evans (@achrisevans) February 4, 2016
Evans’ sense of humour was clearly lost on his colleague Fi Cotter-Craig, a producer who worked with him in the 1990s. She said having to witness him at close quarters was “very unpleasant, it was at eye level and inches from my face.”
Then in February, British comedian Bob Mortimer tweeted provocatively that Top Gear is a “timebomb” for the BBC in view of recent sex and bullying scandals which have inflicted massive reputational damage on the Corporation.
Straight after publication of the Dame Janet Smith Review into the Jimmy Savile scandal, Mortimer wrote: “Well, we’ll soon see if [BBC chief] Tony Hall meant what he said about talent abusing their power at the BBC. #topgeartimebomb.”
It is not clear exactly what Mortimer was getting at because he has remained quiet since, but a well-placed TV industry source has told me that at least one other lady – besides Fi Cotter-Craig – who worked with Evans in the past remains “deeply angry and upset” at what she regards as his “totally unacceptable behaviour” towards her.
I have confirmed that Evans worked with this lady for two years and I have read a written statement by her that certainly reflects her anger. She has made no attempt to hide from friends her recollections of that time and is now weighing up whether to discuss them publicly.
Should she choose to vent spleen in public, Evans might find himself having to answer some awkward questions.
In such a situation, Matt LeBlanc would surely begin to question the wisdom of signing up to Top Gear – a programme he was never totally sure of joining in the first place.
