And On That Bombshell: Inside the Madness and Genius of TG

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And On That Bombshell: Inside the Madness and Genius of Top Gear
Hardcover – 22 Oct 2015    
by Richard Porter (Author)
Amazon £13.60 RRP: £20.00  £16.59
 
It's £12.02, US$18.61, with free delivery worldwide at www.bookdepository.com/And-on-That-Bombshell/9781409164739



'Richard Porter has asked me to "write a quote" for his new book about the ancient history of Top Gear. But this is a ridiculous request. How can one "write a quote"? Surely, by definition, a quote must be extracted from a greater body of writing, for the purpose of illustrating or supporting a point in an unrelated work. I cannot "write a quote" any more than I could "film an out-take".

'Porter, like Athens, has lost his marbles.' - James May

For 13 years, 22 series and 175 shows, Richard Porter was script editor of Top Gear, from the first faltering pilot episode in 2002 until the very last show presented by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May in 2015.

Along the way they destroyed cars, sparked diplomatic incidents, set fire to caravans, almost killed one of the presenters, and somehow transformed Top Gear from a shabby BBC Two motoring show into an Emmy-winning, record-breaking, planet-straddling behemoth.

And On That Bombshell tells stories from behind the scenes of one of the world's most successful television programmes, taking in driving monkeys, broken bones, flying cars, angry rednecks and Jeremy Clarkson's secret nickname. Richard Porter provides a unique insight into how the programmes were made, revealing behind-the-scenes disasters more comical than anything seen on screen, and explaining what it was like to work inside the self-professed 'poky motoring show' that accidentally became a global phenomenon.

www.amazon.co.uk/That-Bombshell-Inside-Madness-Genius/dp/140916473X/ref=sr_1_1_twi_har_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1443699112&sr=8-1&keywords=and+on+that+bombshell

 

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[RedMoon11]

Get behind the scenes on Top Gear



For 13 years, 22 series’ and 175 programmes Sniff Petrol worked as script editor on Top Gear using the absurd pseudonym ‘Richard Porter’. Now, what with the show being ‘rested’, I’ve written a book about this experience in which I explain a bit about how the new format was created, how the show was written, who came up with ill-fated ideas like trying to get a monkey to drive a car, and what really happened with that infamous Porsche number plate.

The book is called AND ON THAT BOMBSHELL and it contains things like this;

“Sometime in the late afternoon and with the prospect of a subsidised thimble of booze getting ever closer, Jeremy appeared to have grown tired of speaking. He turned to James May, who was lounging on a sofa in the manner of a man who has stopped listening and started daydreaming about old motorcycles.
‘James,’ Clarkson said briskly. ‘Have YOU got any ideas to discuss?’
‘Well, yes,’ May replied, without missing a beat. ‘I was wondering if we could get a dog . . .’”

There’s also some stuff like this;

“Halfway through recording Richard and I went outside for a breather. Hammond looked at me with a plaintive expression. ‘I don’t want to do this,’ he said quietly. He was right. It was chaos. And not a good sort of chaos. This was the rambling, badly lit sort of chaos that no one would want to watch.”

Oh, and there’s a little bit of this;

“I once rang Porsche to ask if we could have a 911 for something. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ replied the PR man tersely. ‘The only one we have in that spec just punched a piston through the block after some idiots drove it on a beach and got sand in the engine.’ Those idiots were us.”

AND ON THAT BOMBSHELL is published on Thursday 22 October and if you’re thinking, ‘Gosh, I like books and I like Top Gear and this seems to combine the two’ then you can bag a copy using one of these handy links;

Pre-order the hardback from Amazon
Pre-order the Kindle edition from Amazon

Pre-order the e-book from iBooks

Pre-order the hardback from Waterstones
Pre-order the hardback from WHSmith
Or, for the stoutly old skool, find your nearest bookshop.


ARE YOU AUSTRALIAN OR NEW ZEALISH?
Lucky you. Your climate is enviable and you’re probably reading this with a nice wine on the go. If you’d like to buy AND ON THAT BOMBSHELL in your countries, these links are just for you.

AUS: Pre-order from Booktopia
AUS: Pre-order from Bookworld
NZ: Pre-order from Mighty Ape


Watch this space for news of AND ON THAT BOMBSHELL going on sale in other countries such as the US of States.


sniffpetrol.com/get-behind-the-scenes-on-top-gear/#.ViINDStgmMC

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The day we tried to get a monkey to drive a car on Top Gear

Writer on BBC hit show spills the beans in book


Picture Clarkson & co wanted you to see but animal rights people banned

By EMILY FAIRBAIRN
published
17 October 2015
 
SCRIPT editor Richard Porter helped steer Top Gear from a shabby BBC2 motoring show to an Emmy-winning megahit.

With 13 years, 22 series and 175 shows on the clock, he was there from the faltering 2002 pilot until the last show presented by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May in 2015.

And he has some cracking tales to tell.

Here, in exclusive extracts from his book, And On That Bombshell, Richard spills the beans on the show that became a cultural phenomenon.


Three wheelers ... Hammond, Clarkson and May                                                                                                                                                                  BBC Worldwide Ltd/Ellis O'Brien

MY very favourite lost item was from researcher Jim Wiseman.

“I was wondering,” he said one day. “Could a monkey drive a car?”

We all laughed . . . and agreed that this should definitely be on the show.

Jim gave a well-known monkey sanctuary a call.

Strangely, they didn’t share our enthusiasm for getting one of their inmates to drive a car.

“If I find out that you’re attempting this,” the monkey lady said angrily, “I will SHUT YOU DOWN.”

That was the end of that one.


Script editor and author ... Richard Porter                                                                                                       Darren Fletcher ¿ The Sun


                                                                   How The Gimp became The Stig

RACING drivers, Jeremy Clarkson said, are boring. No one’s interested in what they have to say, we only want to see them set lap times.

So it was agreed, our in-house driver wouldn’t talk, he wouldn’t reveal himself and he wouldn’t use his real name. He would be known only as The Gimp.


Who is it?.. Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise and The Stig

No one in the office knew who would be inside the suit. Executive producer Andy Wilman told us that if anyone did find out his name they would be fired.

As everyone now knows, the original Stig was Perry McCarthy.

Perry, not unreasonably, didn’t like the idea of being called The Gimp because it was the name of the sex slave in Pulp Fiction.

The BBC didn’t like it either. So we changed his name to The Stig, which is what Jeremy and Wilman used to call the new kids at their school.

Crucially, the new name didn’t have overt connections to having your a**e fondled by a man called Zed.

The man we didn’t know was Perry would keep his crash helmet on throughout the day, no matter what.

Watching him trying to eat was hilarious. He had to sneak off and slide his lid up just enough to quickly shove in a sandwich.

Whenever he spoke, The Stig put on a French accent. Remarkably, the unconvincing subterfuge of an Essex man giving it the full Inspector Clouseau actually worked.

Whisper went round the wider world that The Stig really was French.


                                                                                                    Show nearly sank without trace

AS tech failures go, you won’t get much worse than the problem that blighted an attempt to stage a race up the coast of Florida, with Jeremy in a high-tech nuclear submarine.

Unfortunately, before Clarkson could get on board, it was struck with the one fault you really don’t want from a submarine — it sprung a leak.

The sub was stricken out at sea and the leak was not going to be fixed in a hurry, so the Top Gear team packed up and went home. Except, that is, for the chap who did our minicams.

He was on board, having been taken to it a few days early so he could rig the craft for filming. The poor guy ended up staying on the leaky sub for a week.


                                                                     We waged war with car fanatics


A flat motor ... piano crashes on to Morris Marina

IN summer 2008 we set fire to a Morris Marina. I drove the Marina in question before it was torched and James May insisted it made me look like a rural vicar.

So there was no great sadness when it became engulfed in flames.

Unfortunately, the Marina lovers of Britain didn’t share this casual attitude to the destruction of their favourite car and wrote furious letters to the office.

Our response was utterly childish. We decided that if they were annoyed then the solution was to annoy them some more.

Another Marina was bought, and then a piano was dropped on it. The Marinaists were incandescent with rage.

So we did it again. And then again.

At some point during this very puerile attempt to annoy Morris people we got an email from someone complaining not about Marina destruction but about one of the pianos we’d dropped, saying it appeared to be quite a rare and interesting model.

Perversely, we were quite mortified about this.


                  The many stars who drove our Reasonably-Priced Car

 
Driven ... guest Stephen Fry

THE Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car feature was constructed around one man: Bryan Ferry.

It was built on the “joke” of him being forced to drive a cheap car at odds with his suave reputation. Bryan! Ferry! In a hatchback! Ha ha!

We could often tell who were going to be the best guests based on an imaginary scoring system.

Top points would be awarded if they:

1. Drove themselves to the studio. Turning down a chauffeured Merc spoke of a passion for cars, and so it would prove to be with notable self-drivers including Chris Evans, Stephen Fry, Simon Cowell and Jenson Button.

2. Hung around afterwards, like Sienna Miller, Steve Coogan and John Prescott.

3. Came with a minimal entourage. Roger Daltrey turned up with just one old mate, a plasterer. Top blokes.

4. Made themselves at home. Michael Fassbender plonked himself on our tatty sofa as if he was at a mate’s. Matt LeBlanc never wanted to leave, or at least not until we’d concluded a hyper-nerdic conversation about Porsche engines.

5. Gave the impression they wanted to be there. An amazing number of stars were fired up about being part of Top Gear. None more so than Tom Cruise.

Lionel Richie, on the other hand, saw his previous hairstyles flash before his eyes when the bolts sheared through the Liana’s wheel, sending him skittering into a field in a shower of sparks.

Fortunately for us, Lionel Richie turned out to be one of the most laid-back and gracious stars we have ever had on the show.

Only a few slebs disappointed in real life . . . But we never did get Bryan Ferry to do it.


                                                                                                                                                          Top Gear Dog

Hated cars ... Top Gear Dog

WHEN we got the Top Gear Dog in 2006, we were very pleased with ourselves.

But we the got least suitable dog in the world. She hated being in cars — they made her sick, often all over James May.

And if you put her in front of a camera, she went to sleep. We quietly let it drop.

Oddly enough, she occasionally receives fan mail.


                                                                        Porsche off

 
Oops ... driving a Porsche on a beach

MOST car manufacturers maintain a fleet of press demonstrators. You just had to ring the PR office and ask nicely.

I once rang Porsche to ask if we could have a 911.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” replied the PR man. “The only one we have is broken after some idiots drove it on a beach and got sand in the engine.”

Those idiots were us.

---

Copyright (©) Richard Porter, 2015

Extracted from And On That Bombshell by Richard Porter, published by Orion in hardback, audiobook and ebook on October 22, rrp £20.

Special price of £16 for Sun readers, available by calling 01903 828503 and quoting ref no: RI077

---

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/6695347/Juicy-extracts-from-Top-Gear-mans-entertaining-new-book.html

[RedMoon11]

[RedMoon11]

Photos from the book


James on a train in Vietnam, apparently unamused


Jeremy on a train during filming of the Vietnam special, enjoying a rare moment of not being on a scooter (2008)


Jeremy in an unusually quiet mood up a Bolivian mountain (2009)


Jeremy, James and new friends during filming of the Nile special in Africa (2012/13)


James and the Jam bear resting in Burma (2013/14)


Jeremy, James, Richard and Andy Wilman
The presenters outside the studio, apparently pretending to be a boy band, just before recording the third episode of series 18, February 2012


There’s Been an Accident: We’ve Struck TV Gold-Richard Porter

Read more: jamesmayboard.proboards.com/thread/4238/accident-struck-gold-richard-porter?page=1#ixzz3plYVEJtw

[RedMoon11]

Richard Porter was on BBC Radio 5 Live with Phil Williams tonight, 27 October 2015 22:30

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06k9w9f 2 hours, 30 minutes

Podcast
Richard Porter - Top Gear Script Writer
Essential Phil Williams

Listen - www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p036fbwd 29 minutes

Richard Porter - script writer with Top Gear for thirteen years discusses what it was like working on the show and his reaction to the events which led to Jeremy Clarkson being sacked and Top Gear taken off the air.


Top Gear script editor 'let down' by Clarkson

The former script editor on Top Gear says he feels 'let down' by Jeremy Clarkson. Speaking for the first time on national media, Richard Porter, who has written a book about his time on Top Gear, says 'Jeremy was my hero' but reveals that he 'didn't speak to him for months' after a fight between Clarkson and a producer in March 2015. Jeremy Clarkson's contract for Top Gear wasn't renewed by the BBC following the fracas. Richard Porter was the script editor of Top Gear for the last thirteen years right up until when the programme was taken off air. He told Phil Williams on 5 live that he was disappointed by Clarkson's 'moment of madness' and underwhelmed by the apology that followed.

This clip is originally from Phil Williams' programme 28 Oct 2015

Release date: 28 October 2015

Duration:3 minutes

[RedMoon11]

RTE Radio 1 The Ryan Tubridy Show
Wednesday 11 November 2015

Behind the Scenes at Top Gear
Richard Porter, former script editor at Top Gear talks to Ryan about working on the hit TV show.

The interview is about 20 minutes long, he talks about what really happened concerning Jeremy's Series 19, Episode 3 Eneey, meene,y miney, moe stolen film controversy

www.rte.ie/radio1/ryan-tubridy/podcasts/

www.rte.ie/radio1/ryan-tubridy/programmes/2015/1111/741052-the-ryan-tubridy-show-wednesday-11-november-2015/?clipid=2019574#2019574

www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/rteradiowebpage.html#!rii=9%3A20877798%3A20433%3A11%2D11%2D2015%3A&type=radio

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[RedMoon11]

Episode 207
And On That Bombhsell - Richard Porter

Chris Hayes published on Feb 03, 2016 8:00AM

This week we're joined by Richard Porter (@sniffpetrol) author of And On That Bombshell which chronicles his 13 years working on Top Gear. Matt and I start out with dueling stories of Donald Trump being a dick, we then graduate onto stories of how Top Gear staff are suprisingly ill informed off Californian methamphetamime production, how politically charged any production withing the BCC can be, Richard Hammonds reputation as an amazing presenter/sheepish strip-club concierge, how the UK formulates one's pornstar name and a smatter of actual talk about cars as well.

shoutengine.com/TheSmokingTire/and-on-that-bombhsell-richard-porter-15802

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