TV review: The Grand Tour: One for the Road is a very watchable travel show

Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May spend a lot of time drinking and making comments about this being the last show for the three of them 

Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond travel to Zimbabwe. Picture: Prime Video/PA Wire

I was an hour in before I laughed out loud at The Grand Tour: One for the Road (Prime Video). It was James May saying “oh no we won’t” when Hammond told them to stop banging on about his time in the pantomime. You had to be there.

I liked Clarkson, Hammond and May in Top Gear on BBC, before they became like Brexit in a Hillman Hunter. The Brits being assholes abroad bits are gone now, in this last hurrah on Prime Video.

This is essentially a travel show about Zimbabwe and no one wants to see wealthy middle-aged Brits making lame jokes about the locals. So instead we’re invited to believe they drove east-west across the country, got lost, headed north and followed the Zambezi westwards instead. They also bought a load of silver and rolled a VW Beetle off a cliff. They did the trip in three classic cars from the 1970s. They didn’t say “that was the last time anything was any good”, because they didn’t need to.

It was a lot like a recent weekend reunion I had with three friends in their 50s. (Except for the VW Beetle.) Everyone was in character. James May was grumpy, Hammond was perky, Clarkson likes a drink. They sniped at each other about the same things they’ve always sniped about, just like my friends and I did in Glengarriff.

Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May filming the final The Grand Tour. Picture: Prime Video/PA Wire

There was just the right amount of disdain for health and safety. Clarkson calling his little river ferry HMS Shitfaced was a nice joke within a joke. He referred to James May as Greta Thunberg, but not in a nasty way.

They spent a lot of time drinking on their river ferries, making wistful comments about this being the last show for the three of them. It probably won’t be.

It was pointless in the way middle-aged men slowly realise life is pointless. Rather than finishing at the western border of Zimbabwe, they ‘decide’ to cross into Botswana and the place where they made their first special. The cars start to fall apart, in sympathy with their drivers.

The genius of Clarkson’s Top Gear was to make it more about the presenters than the cars. It lost its way because three middle-aged English blokes are bound to make dodgy comments about the natives. They copped on to that, and now it’s a very watchable TV travel show. Particularly if you’re a middle-aged man who’s learned not to take life too seriously. If you’re not in that gang, it might seem foolish and self-indulgent. But they’ve earned it.