Jokes, Blokes End Up On Top
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday October 10, 2008
Expertise and plenty of humour characterise the hosts of this boys' own motoring adventure.
There is no mistaking the look of fear on their faces. The Top Gear presenters are used to being on the edge, doing dangerous stunts in fast cars at high speeds. But this is different.They're not in a car, they're in the quiet, leafy suburban back streets of North Sydney, in a planning meeting with about a dozen production staff, including me."There's not a single person working on this who isn't shitting themselves," says one of the hosts, Charlie Cox, 48, a BBC motorsport commentator, former race driver and radio executive. The room cracks up because everyone knows he's right.Australian audiences have had 10 seasons - or 10 years - to get to know the hosts of the British show and, because it is one of SBS's highest-rating programs, viewers are familiar with it."The trouble is, everyone is going to compare us with season 10 of the UK show and not season one," says co-host Steve Pizzati, 34, race driver and advanced driver training instructor. Pizzati talks with his hands a lot and doesn't mind taking the piss out of others and himself."Actually I'm really grateful SBS has been showing some of the original Top Gear UK episodes, so hopefully we won't look so shit," says third host Warren Brown, 43, a car nut and collector of old trucks, buses and fire engines. He is a cartoonist on Another Paper and also drove from Peking to Paris in some ancient cars for an ABC TV documentary.The three boys, as the production staff call them, bring different skills to the team. But don't dare ask any of them which one they are from the British show."If I get asked that one more time...," says Pizzati who, in the three months I worked behind the scenes on the show, never finished that sentence but started it dozens of times.That said, now we've seen the boys in action there is no doubt there are similarities with the British show. "It's just three mates f---ing about," as Cox puts it.In the casting process, all applicants had to send in a few minutes of footage of themselves. It was then up to TV executives to view them all and see if they could find three who'd get along. The show received 4000 applications "and believe me, we watched absolutely every single one of them", says SBS TV's head of local content Denise Eriksen.From there, about 90 people from across Australia were interviewed in person before 12 were selected for a three-day love-in in the Southern Highlands. Most of that time was a bonding session (if you ever get the chance, you should see 12 blokes trying to be nice to each other while at the same time wanting to slit each other's throats for a job) but there was a bit of time in front of a camera towards the end. The producers also astutely set up a go-kart session, just in case there wasn't enough competitive spirit.Some of the dirty dozen thought the fastest driver would win the role but the producers were really looking at interaction when the racing had stopped.One TV hopeful was so keen to get to the front of the field he unwittingly punted the head of production off the track. Twice. He didn't get into the final three but it was not because of the race track antics, those in the know insist.So how did the three make it? I'm biased because I've been working with them on the show but they are genuinely decent blokes, genuinely funny and genuinely smart. Most importantly, though, they know how to laugh at themselves. And each other, of course.Pizzati's demo tape showed him attempting to ride a unicycle down Melbourne's Chapel Street in some unflattering bike shorts. Cox's demo tape had him comparing Moto GP motorcycle stars with fine wine. And Brown's demo tape was a race between his fire truck and an old double-decker bus. Significantly, but coincidentally, none of the demo tapes had cars as the stars. (Rumour has it one applicant hired a helicopter and arranged three super-exotic sports cars for his demo tape.)And therein lies one of the secrets of the Top Gear formula. "For most people it's not a car show, it's a show that has cars in it. The guys get off on the cars and the mucking about and for women it's a peek into men's lives, almost like secret men's business," Eriksen says.And the boys know their stuff. Cox has a light-hearted take on cars but has the advantage, as he puts it, of a few extra years of wisdom compared with the other two.Brown is obsessed with old bangers and owns a few of them. He has an obsession with military history and, er, guns. Pizzati has spent the past 10 years or so driving other people's fast and expensive cars and teaching them how to drive them better, or more safely.Cox and Pizzati are at home on a race track. Brown is more at home in the bush. Just don't get him to navigate. He might have been able to find his way from Peking to Paris but he got lost in the sand dunes near Newcastle while filming a story that became the first segment of the local show.On TV it might have appeared staged but Brown genuinely got disoriented that day because he lost his bearings at the bottom of a valley of giant dunes. And the cars got bogged. What the cameras didn't show was the recovery four-wheel-drives that plucked their soft-roaders to safety.The other genuine mishap on the same "sand to snow" story was when all three cars found themselves slipping and sliding on an icy stretch of road.That wasn't planned - the only reason they got stuck was because the camera car wanted everyone to pause while the cameras were reloaded. Ah, that's television.My favourite scene so far is yet to air. While travelling at 160kmh, Pizzati takes his hands off the steering wheel and his feet away from the pedals. This is absolutely not the work of trick photography or any radar gadgets. I've probably already said too much by giving this clue away but let's just say it's worth watching.Joshua Dowling took leave from the Herald to work on Top Gear Australia as a motoring consultant.
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald