The High Performance Podcast
Andy Wilman RETURNS: Clarkson's Farm Secrets & Top Gear Reunion? (E415)
08 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is Andy Wilman's philosophy on creating content?
The genius is him and Jeremy. Top Gear. Clarkson's father.
I'm a boomer. 63.
Top Gear, Jeremy.
Change the Stig now and again.
The Madagascar special, everyone knows it didn't really work. Why don't we do a mid-air Formula One tyre change? 20 million. We were talking about shit ideas. It's a heavy series, so it is dramatic. I can't talk about the ending of series five. I ain't saying nothing. We're never going to do it.
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Chapter 2: How does Andy view the role of mental health in the creative process?
Well, that's a first. Yeah, that is a first. That is a first. That's Amazon. But that means that editor's work is now four weeks instead of 12 or whatever. And they're also not knowing what hasn't made it to this point. 100%. The magic. It's going right. Trope, trope, trope. You know the magic. I love that. There's the future. Welcome back. How are you feeling?
Chapter 3: What challenges did Clarkson face in connecting with the farming community?
Ugh. We just talked about AI before you said welcome back. Look. I'm good, thank you.
You're not a fan of AI? No, I'm a boomer. 63.
All the, you know, the old stories. Oh, can you help me with this printer? Et cetera, et cetera. That's me. Do you know how many people enjoyed the last episode that we recorded together? No, because I steer clear. Total numbers, 20 million. Yeah.
Chapter 4: What are some memorable ideas that never made it to air?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we put out the main full unedited long conversation with you. That's already done one and a half million. And then we put out snippets and little clips of the best bits that we spoke about. That did about another five or six million. Oh, wow. Social clips did another bunch of millions. Bloody hell. I'm glad for the boomer. And now I've got to go... So that's a good number.
Yeah, yeah. So now what do we do? So we're all right, yeah. So the reason why we've invited you back, and we've never done this with any other guest before, is when you get tens of millions of views of the first conversation, but more importantly, tens of thousands of questions that people want answered, well, there's only one way to please our audience, and that's to put you back in the chair.
Chapter 5: How does Andy define a 'crap idea' in television?
Or get AI. Or get AI to watch the episode and work out what the answers might be.
our first ever coffee just missing my face episode of high performance so should we get straight into it you needed your coffee today right yeah we've got the farm coming out and I'm a bit whacked so the coffee is much needed look we're going to talk about Clarkson's farm we want to talk about Top Gear Grand Tour we actually put out a photo on socials today said you're coming in send us some questions we're going to just run through those first of all these are questions that came in in the last hour for people
The first one comes from James McDonald, who got in touch on Facebook and said, what's the best idea for any of your shows, whether it is Clarkson's Farm, Top Gear or The Grand Tour, that never made it to air that you really wish people had the chance to see? Thanks, James, at this hour of the morning. For the old, what's the never did? Yeah. Um...
There wasn't an idea I don't think we couldn't do. We had crap ideas. Remember those Carlsberg adverts, Carlsberg don't do? Yeah. And we were like, right, Top Gear doesn't do petrol stations. What if we did one? So we spent a good morning with people like Richard Porter and so on going, right, we'll take over a petrol station and we'll make it the Top Gear petrol station.
Chapter 6: What lessons were learned from the Madagascar special?
So it was going to be like anybody who bought diesel, there'd be just a huge tannoy going with like Jeremy at the till going, like across the forecourt and so on. And then anybody, you know, people get in their car after they've paid and then don't move off. What are they doing? Like, what are they doing? But... So there was going to be like a massive pile driver thing that shoves their car.
And then inside, because it becomes supermarkets as well, people go, I'll just do my shopping and leave my car at pump four. It was going to sell like Werther's Originals and that was it. And then a till for petrol. And then after a while we thought, no, this is just becoming an aircraft carrier for jokes. So this is shit. Because it's like, it's the worst thing you can do.
It's like not have a point to what you're doing. So James, that never happened, but that was a good thing. We always tried to go to Iran.
Chapter 7: How does Andy explain the success of Clarkson's Farm?
Oh, go on. I have got one. Go for it. Because it costs too much. We were going to do... Iron Man 3, you know when the plane is crashing and Iron Man joins everybody up to save their lives? We thought, why don't we do a mid-air Formula One tyre change? So you have a big transporter, one of them C-130s. Ramp comes down. If anybody's got the money, do it.
Car comes out, and then all the tyre-changing mechanics come out. So the car comes out on a parachute, right? Car comes out, but the parachute, no, this was the bit we were planning was, it's got like 45 seconds or 60 seconds before the parachute opens. And it's like, you've got to change the tires before the parachute opens.
So it's got to, we had to find a way of stabilizing it with really tiny parachutes, but it's still falling.
Chapter 8: What future projects does Andy envision after the success of Clarkson's Farm?
And then you'd have those skydiver people and you'd train them and they come out with the wheels. And you do a mid-air,
f1 car tire change before the parachute opens and we thought that would be the coolest thing in the world and then we did up the numbers and it was just like never gonna happen it was about five million dollars and i thought oh wow right for a minute or whatever two minutes like how much can you milk this you know so it didn't happen That would have been great telly.
Yeah, it would have been great telly, yeah. Somebody could do it. How do you decide if an idea is crap? So that's obviously cost, but how did you sort of go around editing yourselves? Jeremy was the main man on this, which was things have to have a point. So what do I mean by that? A good example, the ambulances film when we built ambulances.
And now, so start of the program, they go, NHS ambulances are too slow, too expensive. They're X hundred thousand pound each. We can do it much cheaper and they'll be like better sort of thing. So you've got this hubris, which has got the comedy of we can do better, you know. But you have a point. They cost the NHS a fortune.
So Jeremy James and Richard East take a donor car and make their version of what an ambulance should be. So you know it's going to be like, sort of fuck about Cartoon Central after a short while because of all the things that are going to go wrong. But all the time, you're bedded in with this point that we're trying to improve an ambulance. Why does that matter for the story?
Because if you just do... You're back to the petrol station thing. If you just do... Right, we'll put a car with loads of gizmos and gadgets. You're very quickly, you're building a clown car and you're just going, please laugh at this. Please find this funny sort of thing. So you just don't do it. Whereas the thread, like, can you buy a Porsche for 1500 quid? The thread is there.
People probably never going to do it. Oh, that's a first. That is a first in this building. I love the fact your cameras are still rolling. Yeah, I've got battery power, yeah. So just as we got going on this record, the whole building lost power. So what did we do? It's a disaster, William. What are we saying, Benny? Producer Will. I love this.
We're actually filming an episode of our performance on voice memos on an iPhone. Oh, yeah. I actually think it's cool. We grabbed our iPhones, we rigged up some makeshift lighting and we kept going. Andy Wilmer, buy candlelight. This was how they made television in the Georgian era. It is! Can anyone remember what we were talking about? Where were we? We were talking about shit ideas.
No, we've done that. Shit idea, book in the building. Here's a shit idea, let's have a power cut in the middle. Shit idea, rent this office. Let's go to a question from Wilson. It's a shit idea, don't pay the electricity bill. If this happened when you were filming Top Gear, would you see it as a disaster or would you go, that'll be great telly?
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