NEVER has a television star had such a strong supporting cast as Jeremy Clarkson in his documentary, Clarkson’s Farm. Nor have they been as badly needed. When you think of what farming requires – knowledge of crops, soil chemistry, seasons, wildlife and livestock, not to mention a PhD in government rules – Clarkson seems overwhelmingly underqualified.

That, of course, is the point. Clarkson’s Farm follows the former Top Gear presenter’s exploits when he takes over the running of his 1000-acre farm in the Cotswolds. When his incumbent farm manager retired, Clarkson – age 59 – decided to take on the job himself.

The first people he rang, it seems, was neither Defra nor the National Farmers' Union but Amazon. Doubtless he saw the potential for a gently comic documentary about a famously accident-prone petrol-head taking on rustic shire-life.

Maybe he envisioned something in the mould of Three Men in a Boat, with the boat replaced by massive agricultural machines and in place of rowing companions a young local farmer, Kaleb, an agricultural Einstein, called Cheerful Charlie, and Gerald, an unintelligible dry stone dyker. Gerald’s accent is so rich it’s like listening to BBC Alba, where only occasionally is the Gaelic punctured by a recognisable word, such as dishwasher or Brexit.

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I’ve come late to the first series, but am delighted to learn that a second is already in the making. Rarely have I heard my husband laugh as loudly. Half of Hoolet can probably hear him as Clarkson makes a botch of almost everything he puts his hand to: driving a tractor the size of a caravan – it’s a Lamborgini, of course – which brings down gate posts and can’t fit in the barn; or learning to make honey, during which he drives his car in full bee-keeper’s outfit, because half the hive has flown in to join him.

When creating a rewilding area he appears to be trying to replicate the surface of Mars – no sign of life is left in his wake; meanwhile his battles with his new flock of sheep are by turns heart-warming (turns out he has a caring side) and perilously inept.

For those who say they can’t watch Clarkson’s Farm because they can’t abide his reactionary views, it’s possibly worth it for the scene where a sheep, fearing it is about to be sheared by a novice, takes its revenge. Personally, I prefer when the flock evades capture and races off through waist-high wheat, heads bobbing above it like seals at sea.

The stars of the show are Clarkson’s support team, including his shepherd Ellen, with her collie. But for me, the knock-out performers are the sheep. When Kaleb tells Clarkson he’d have made much more money by growing grass to sell as hay, he looks momentarily disgruntled. Grass wouldn’t entail vet’s bills, miserable trips to the slaughterhouse with the incurable, the worming, clipping, castrating but, above all, the exhausting weeks of lambing.

As the travails of the sheep farmer unfold, you wonder why any sensible person bothers, given the miserly rewards. Then you see Clarkson leaning on his gate, watching the animals contentedly grazing, and it clicks. They make the farm feel like a farm, creating an emotional bond in ways no field of barley ever could.

Clarkson began his new vocation in the wettest autumn in living memory. This was followed by the pandemic lockdown, and a spring where barely a cloud crossed the sky. That sunny spell helped millions cope better with their enforced isolation, but it did nothing for the state of British agriculture. The sight of cracked red earth where there should have been a sea of green, brought home just how precarious farming can be.

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In that sense, this documentary is a far cry from reality. When in trouble, Clarkson buys his way out. I do know farmers who are absolutely loaded, but generally they are the exception. There can’t be many in Clarkson’s position, where the difference between a failed crop and a good harvest is a matter only of pride.

Certainly, his bottomless bank account makes for more entertaining television than kitchen-sink despair. With every problem he encounters, he can whistle up expertise or aid in a way others can but dream of. He can afford to make terrible mistakes, or throw himself into rash new ventures, without barely an hour of homework.

Even so, it is remarkable what a success he makes of things, and how much fun he has along the way. Given the extremes of climate, and the peculiar times in which he started out, his endurance and enthusiasm are impressive.

Oddly – or possibly deliberately – this programme acts as a brilliant public education service. Unless you’re born into farming, or have worked in agriculture, the whys and wherefores of how our food is grown and reared are largely unfathomable.

Most of us have a grasp of the basics but seeing the inner workings of this farm is revelatory. The more errors Clarkson makes, the better viewers understand what’s at stake.

This is no small matter. Despite his image as one of the greediest petrol-guzzlers in these isles, he is more environmentally and socially conscious than this would suggest. Many of his initiatives are geared towards greater diversity of insects and trees, wildlife and fish. He genuinely likes nature and wants it to thrive.

There is some irony in this, which he can’t fail to recognise. For decades, farming has been one of the worst culprits in terms of environmental damage, not least because of the chemicals used to boost productivity, the methane produced by cattle, or the destruction of hedgerows to accommodate increasingly enormous machines in ever-expanding fields.

Yet when even landowners like Clarkson recognise the need to nurture nature rather than exploit it, it would seem the country’s food producers have turned a crucial psychological and environmental corner.

Equally importantly, Clarkson’s Farm demystifies agriculture. It is no longer beyond the ken of ordinary people. We might not know what it’s like to drive a tractor (a lifetime ambition) but we now understand better the demands of growing crops or rearing sheep. Thanks to the clumsiest and most gung-ho bull ever to enter the farm shop business, the entrenched barrier between farmers and the rest of us has been toppled.

Who could ever have imagined Clarkson would be an agent of enlightenment?

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