How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [92]
Sunday 26 July 2009
Soaking up the raw emotion of the best beetroot contest
As I write, millions and millions of pounds are being spent1 developing new stunts for this year’s Top Gear Live events in London and Birmingham. The reasoning is simple. Audiences are no longer happy to see a car behind a rope on a stand. They want to see it barrel-roll and explode. They want to see fire. They want to see Richard Hammond’s head come off.
We see much the same thing in the theatre. Gone are the days when people would be happy with The Corn Is Green and a bit of Colonel Mustard in the library. Now they want Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to fly over their heads and for a helicopter gunship to land on the stage. And of course, in film, the drive for more excitement knows no bounds. In The Way to the Stars, audiences were spellbound by some men talking. Whereas now, nobody’s really happy unless Paris blows up.
Or are they? I only ask because I’ve just been to a village show where nothing exploded. No one was raked with machinegun fire. Will Smith was not there. All we got was a burger van, a cow in a tent and some bees. But 10,000 people turned up.
City dwellers would argue that village shows remain popular because country folk lead such dreary lives. But I am a city boy at heart. I love Hong Kong and San Francisco. And yet, last weekend, there I was in the Women’s Institute, commiserating with Deirdre because her amazing knitted Elvis had been pipped to first prize by Maureen’s mother-of-pearl, hand-painted fan. I was then distracted by the sheep. I’ve always thought that a sheep was a sheep. But no. There was one that had been fitted with the head from a buffalo. There were vicious wolf sheep with spiky horns for stabbing ramblers. (I’m definitely getting some of those.) And then there was a sheep with quite the largest testicles I’ve ever seen. They would have looked ridiculous on even a brontosaurus. I swear each one was 2 ft in diameter. If the RSPCA wasn’t looking, you could have used them as space hoppers. I have seen Miss Saigon and I enjoyed it very much. But here’s the thing. I enjoyed looking at that sheep’s testes even more.
Other highlights? There were millions. I bought a jar of honey. I sat in a tractor. I had a lovely chat with a chap whose Yorkshire terrier had come second in the best dog competition because, just as he sat down, he was distracted by a fly and stood up again. The poor chap was inconsolable. All year he had been preparing for his moment of glory and because of one damn fly, one pesky little insect, he’d been beaten, yet again, by Brian and his ‘Newfoundland monster’.
This is what makes the village show so fantastic. It allows everyone a chance to shine. If, after years and years of blood and sweat, you win the best beetroot competition, you understand how Usain Bolt felt when he took gold in the Olympic 100 metres. And you in the audience get to see that raw emotion up close.
Seriously. What’s the difference between winning the Formula One world championship and winning the best beehive competition at a local agricultural show? Emotionally, there is none at all.
But the best thing about a village show is that there’s always a brass band. Brass bands make the best noise in the world. I have seen the Who. I have seen Pink Floyd. I have seen opera, ballet, piano recitals and the Proms. I have even heard a Ferrari V12 at full chat. But for sheer heart-tugging joy, nothing has matched the brass band I saw performing one chilly day at the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield. It is the soundtrack of the community. The village. The mine.