grand tour unscripted

• Edit source
• 1.2 Track Test
• 1.3 Conversation Street
• 1.4 Celebrity Face Off

Synopsis [ ]

In the past, The Grand Tour was criticised for being too Scripted, so the trio agree to make a completely unplanned film with no scouts, no pre-scripted exchanges, no knowledge of the type of challenge and no set up explosions, with the only agreement be that the film in Croatia.

At Zadar's Sea Organ, the presenters meet with a problem. Clarkson turns up in an Audi TT RS , Hammond brings the not at all comparable Ariel Nomad whilst May purchases an old Lada Riva, for under £2000, which he attempts to convert into a Fire Engine, despite his two colleagues stating that tit would be impossible. After a selfie from a fan, the Trio agree to go in separate directions.

As Clarkson enjoys an open road in his TT, while struggling to think of words to describe the car, he is interrupted by Hammond in the Nomad, who consistently makes air hostess jokes, due to the TT's image. Eventually Clarkson gets fed up and the two undergo a small race, which quickly ends due to the road ending. They agree to compare the TT to the Nomad, by firstly having a drag race.

Meanwhile May who'd found a workshop, begins converting his Lada into a Fire Engine, with the help of some Locals.

Hammond and Clarkson have trouble having their drag race due to the high volume of Paparazzis, until eventually they head to an Airport, as suggested by Hammond. However, Clarkson finds out, that due to the team not booking the venue, in advance, they are not allowed on the airstrip. The duo eventually find an abandoned runway to stage their drag race. However, due to them not having a starter, a traffic light the TT having Launch Control, the Nomad having no storage and half their film crew busy with May, they agree to halt proceedings and find a starter.

Elsewhere, May eventually finishes constructing his Fire Lada, and after explaining the tools, he attempts to find a fire to put out.

A woman named Sylvia is found, but proves to be too distracting for Clarkson and Hammond. They therefore agree for her to be the finishing line while a sound recordist, takes the place of the starter. Further problems arise, as upon starting the race, Hammond breaks the Nomad's clutch, and due to spare parts being required, Clarkson takes Sylvia for a spin in the TT.

Meanwhile, after having no success in searching for a fire, May is forced to set a bin on fire and put it out.

Eventually, the Nomad is repaired and finally, Hammond and Clarkson stage their drag race. Despite both having a good start, the TT surges into the lead, and wins.

The next morning, after the drag race, Clarkson and Hammond agree for their second comparison to be a race at a rally stage. However due to their lack of script the duo once again have to find a location.

Meanwhile May's Fire Lada puts out further small fires including some locals barbecue. The trio regroup at a waterfall where May tries claim victory due to him succeeding with most of the points but his colleagues point out, irritably that they are not taking part in his Fire Engine Challenge, with Clarkson throwing the chart board into the lake.

Hammond and Clarkson eventually find their rally stage, with Sylvia being the timer. Despite the Nomad's off-road pedigree, due to the TT having AWD and more power, Clarkson wins by two seconds, annoying Hammond. The duo then get a call from May who states that they should meet him for a demonstration on his fire engine. They set off concluding their part by stating that they fell in love with their cars with Clarkson gaining overall victory. They're rally times times are:

Clarkson and Hammond discover May setting up a fire near the road, and accuse him cheating, to which the latter orders them to set up his Bush Fire. They agree and set up the fire in the middle of nowhere, however due to May living up to his Captain Slow title, the Bush Fire grows to immense size. This proves too difficult for May's fire engine, who eventually runs out of all his supplies. This results in the Croatian Fire Brigade to turn in their fire plane, which not only puts out the fire but destroys the Fire Lada in the process.

Back at the Tent, Clarkson claims overall victory for the TT, due to it beating the Nomad and states that May lost as the real Fire Brigade had to assist him.

Track Test [ ]

Hammond makes his second visit to the Eboladrome for a test of the brand new McLaren 720S . He praises the Car's speed, handling, styling, comfort, drift ability and technology concluding that it's Utterly Brilliant. Back in the tent Clarkson disputes these claims and after Eaton, sets a time of 1:17.9 around the Eboladrome, the 3rd fastest at the time, Clarkson points out that the 720S is no faster than outgoing 650S.

Conversation Street [ ]

Stint: Hammond plays a Trombone while his colleagues look irritated.

In a special edition of Conversation Street , the presenters host the Nigel Awards. The awards were as follows:

Celebrity Face Off [ ]

This week, British classical singers Alfie Boe and Michael Ball in a battle of the "Fastest Classical Singer in the world who has a connection to the British Motor Industry" with Ball triumphing on the Damp Track with a time of 1:23.3 over Boe's 1:24.4.

• 2 Hammond's Rimac Crash
• 3 A Massive Hunt

The Grand Tour goes unscripted, leading to chaos

The Grand Tour Season 2 streams on Amazon Video

The Grand Tour Season 2 Episode 4: "Unscripted"

Episode Rating:  3 out of 5 Drift Control Settings

(Spoilers, obviously)

The episode opens with a film about the McLaren 720s driven by Richard Hammond. Immediately Hammond is all about the looks of the latest McLaren offering, saying it finally has the looks to back up the performance. Which is saying something considering the 720s uses 710 horsepower to get to 60 mph in just 2.8 seconds, besting it's competition from Lamborghini and Ferrari.

The coolest feature is the "variable drift control" that changes the traction control by selecting the specific slip angle you want it to allow. All that performance, plus a drift mode, yet Hammond notes that it is still actually comfortable in comfort mode.

After a rave review, though, the 720s did a 1:17.9 around the track which is the exact same speed as the 650s it replaces. While Hammond surmised it came down to tire choice, James May and Jeremy Clarkson offer up the alternative: that it isn't any better than the car it replaces.

Conversation street

This episode, the trio gives out some end-of-year awards.

The Nissan Juke award for worst car of the year fittingly went to the Nissan Juke.

The worst rear end went to the Land Rover Discovery and its off-center license plate.

The car you like but know you shouldn't was the Corvette ZR1. This one was explained by the fact that anyone in their right mind would want one, but wake up the next morning and realize how it makes them look. Which in Britain, must be a bigger issue than here in the states.

The lack of continuity award went to Hammond for switching entire cars mid-film. During the McLaren segment, the first car was destroyed when Hammond accidentally filled the car with water that was in a gas can. The destroyed McLaren makes him 2 for 2 for destroying supercars this season.

Unscripted and off the rails

Addressing complaints of previous films being too scripted or set up, the three presenters aim to film an entire segment without any set ups, scripts or scouting of any kind. The only thing they planned is that they would meet in Croatia.

Jeremy showed up in an Audi TT RS but struggles to think of a good metaphor for the car on the spot when Hammond shows up in the TT's polar opposite, and Ariel Nomad. If those cars weren't mismatched enough, James May showed up in a Lada that he was convinced he would turn into a fire truck.

After a fan interrupted to take a selfie, they all took off in separate directions since they didn't have any planned destination.

Jeremy continues his struggles to find descriptions, this time for the engine noises his Audi makes. Then Hammond finds him and starts a race, but without location scouting, they realize they picked a dead end.

They went to an airport to drag race but couldn't get permission to use the airfield without advance warning. When they finally find a place to race, Hammond snaps a driveshaft on the Nomad so Clarkson went off with the pretty local woman they found to start the race. Once they returned, the real race saw the Audi beating the Nomad much to their 'impartial' local's delight.

Elsewhere, James had gone about turning his cheap Lada into a fire truck, insisting that was the point of the episode. Unfortunately, without a staged fire, he couldn't show off his work. So, he then started his own fire in a trash can.

Celebrity F-off

This time, two British singers were brought in. Each singer had connections to the British automotive industry. Boe confirmed a rumor that TVR's came with hidden messages underneath the trim and paint, usually rude messages for the paint shop. Their laps were particularly British, with a damp track and fog, where Ball beat Boe by a second.

Back in Croatia

Back to the main film of the episode, the next unscripted item on the docket is an offroad rally race. Once the pair finally find a dirt track where the nomad is at home, the timing is handled by the same local woman from before, who is clearly enamored with Clarkson at this point.

The Audi's 4wd and power should not be enough to make up for the weight and suspension travel disadvantages, but the biased timer says Jeremy's TT RS won by a second.

Despite the TT's lack of street cred, and Jeremy fumbling to describe it at every turn, he still thinks the RS is a totally different animal than the flight attendants car its reputation would have you imagining.

Hammond believes the nomad is utterly pointless but an absolute blast to drive, and that is the highest compliment in these circumstances.

Meanwhile, James May has put out someone's bbq and keeps trying to compare to the other two's fire trucks to his own, even though they aren't participating in his one-man challenge.

To set a 'realistic' demonstration of the fire truck, Clarkson and Hammond set a fire in the weeds. When captain slow finally shows up to the fire, it was out of control and the real fire brigade had to come with an airplane. The ensuing deluge put out the fire, and destroyed the Lada along with it.

Impressions

The Grand Tour writers must have read our last review because, after complaining about how the segments felt staged and stale, they gave us an episode totally devoid of a script. They made their point, with Jeremy struggling to find his words on the spot, random interruptions ruining segments and a lack of a coherent story with the three presenters freestyling.

They did a bit of an overcorrect, however, as we would love to have seen a planned challenge, with scouted locations and proper permits, just with some more ad-libbing in the presenters' interactions. Actually, it sounds like we are describing their usual road trip/adventure episodes. Which makes sense, because we would watch an entire series of those and give it five stars every time.

A good episode that made its point, but in doing so, left us a bit bored at times.

Quote of the episode:

"James May applied for a job at McLaren and they turned him down for being too slapdash" - Richard Hammond describing McLaren's obsessive attention to detail.

The Grand Tour - Season 2

Season 2 Preview

Season 2 Episode 1 - Past, Present or Future

Season 2 Episode 2 - The Falls Guys

Season 2 Episode 3 - Bah Humbug-atti

Season 2 Episode 5 - Coming soon

Season 2 Episode 6 - Coming soon

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The Grand Tour producer reveals the show is loosely scripted

"We know where we're going, we know where we're headed."

The Grand Tour 's executive producer has admitted that the series is actually "very" loosely scripted.

While the show follows the casual nature of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May's shenanigans on the road, some have wondered how spontaneous things are.

Speaking ahead of the release of new special A Scandi Flick , Andy Wilman said of how scripted things are (via Radio Times ): "Very loose. we know where we're going, we know where we're headed."

Related: The Grand Tour unveils first look at new special with Clarkson, May and Hammond in "Europe's great wilderness"

"There are certain things on that film that we know, like you know, Jeremy and Richard come to that ice lake to race the skiiers and we don't find those by accident, that sort of thing," he explained. "You set that up in advance, but you don't know what the outcome will be and so on and so on.

"We had a notion that we were going to build sheds because we had seen on a reccy those little huts. So you work that in and you go, 'Right, we will build some sheds,' but what will happen to them or how they will play out, we don't know."

Related: The Grand Tour 's James May opens up about dramatic crash in new special

Addressing one key moment from the special, which sees the presenters drive with sheds on the back of their cars through the snow and down a ski slope, Wilman revealed that Clarkson's move to push Hammond's shed down the slope was the presenter's idea.

"We usually go with a sheet of A4 [paper] with bullet points, which, for a 90-minute film, I think is still good to sort of hand-on-heart say we're still making this s**t up overarchingly," he explained.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Hammond defended the decision to air May's car crash while filming as part of the special.

The Grand Tour: A Scandi Flick is available on Amazon Prime Video now.

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Sam is a freelance reporter and sub-editor who has a particular interest in movies , TV and music. After completing a journalism Masters at City University, London, Sam joined Digital Spy as a reporter, and has also freelanced for publications such as NME and Screen International .  Sam, who also has a degree in Film, can wax lyrical about everything from Lord of the Rings to Love Is Blind , and is equally in his element crossing every 't' and dotting every 'i' as a sub-editor.

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Music and Concerts | Review: Jeff Lynne’s ELO delivers a farewell…

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Music and concerts | review: jeff lynne’s elo delivers a farewell show with tight precision at the united center.

Fronted by the singer-guitarist Lynne, the group’s last remaining permanent member, ELO offered a mix of professionalism and competency that should serve as a model for nostalgia-based legacy concerts. It wasted not a second of its 90-minute length on blather or time-stalling breaks. Each of the dozen support musicians seemed to cheerfully embrace their supplemental roles and appeared to understand the reason they were there: to celebrate Lynne’s place in popular music.

A man of few words, Lynne acted with a gracious modesty atypical for someone with his resume. When fans erupted in an extended ovation, his first and only inclination was to move to the next song. Wearing a jacket and scarf, his tinted glasses parked underneath a tousled mat of curly hair, the 76-year-old looked the same as he has since the Reagan era. His limited movements suggested otherwise. He primarily stood in front of a microphone for the duration and relied on his mates to incite the audience to stand or clap.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, the British native made no attempt to force several subpar new songs down the crowd’s throat. Lynne knew what people wanted to hear, and delivered the classics. Simple as that. With the exception of the rollicking and scene-setting “One More Time,” the most recent tune ELO played stemmed from 1980. Then again, even in its heyday, ELO never conformed to contemporary tastes. The band’s ambitious structures, chamber-string flourishes and contagious hooks created an aural fantasia that crossed genre boundaries and paired with futuristic imagery.

The odd sight of a background singer Melanie Lewis-McDonald belting out an operatic aria as the rest of the band lit into a peppy, early rock ‘n’ roll arrangement on “Rockaria!” encapsulated its instrumental strengths, lasting appeal and delightful eccentricities. ELO blended classical, choral and pop in sophisticated songs that on paper shouldn’t have worked but whose disparate pieces fell together as if they always belonged.

With a piano, keyboards, multiple guitars, three string instrumentalists and an array of voices at its disposal — not to mention advanced technology that can close any potential gaps or hide flaws — the collective constructed walls of sound that impressed as much for the traits they possessed (smoothness, lushness, richness) as for what they lacked (density, awkwardness, overcompensation).

Still, the absence of any trace of spontaneity, or inclusion of any unscripted solos, indicated that critical parts of the traditional live experience went missing. Ditto organic warmth and charisma. However rehearsed, the buttoned-up ELO capably and accurately replicated fare steeped in imaginative realities and atmospheric grandeur. What transpired closely mirrored what you can hear on record.

ELO’s allegedly final jaunt brings full circle the up-and-down history of a group that sold tens of millions of records in the ’70s before suffering a precipitous decline the following decade. It didn’t help that by the mid-’80s, Lynne grew more interested in production duties than the ensemble he co-founded. Soon after disbanding ELO, he co-helmed George Harrison’s commercially successful “Cloud Nine” comeback LP and found himself at the center of the Traveling Wilburys supergroup with Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Roy Orbison.

As Lynne doubled down in the studio, ELO branding got complicated. In 1989, he granted co-founder Bev Bevan the rights to forge ahead under the banner of “ELO Part II” as part of an agreement in which each held a 50% share of the original name. When Bevan quit the second iteration of the group near the turn of the century, he sold Lynne his half of the ELO moniker. The leftover faction of ELO Part II became The Orchestra, and Lynne, whose oversight on an ELO anthology jump-started his renewed interest in the band, began plotting a return.

The 2001 release of the first ELO studio album (“Zoom”) in 15 years marked a false start. Poor ticket sales forced Lynne and company to cancel a scheduled tour. Save for a couple of minor one-off performances, ELO would not return on a grand scale until 2014 — billed then as Jeff Lynne’s ELO. An acclaimed appearance at the 2015 Grammy Awards that brought Beyoncé and Taylor Swift to their feet and inspired Paul McCartney to dance signaled ELO’s time had finally arrived again. A subsequent 2018 trek marked the first of its kind for ELO in America in more than three decades.

Owing to tradition, Friday’s event featured the group’s signature flying saucer, both in the outline of a sizable ovular lighting rig behind the bi-level stage and in many of the animated graphics projected onscreen. Circumventing the globe, crashed in the desert, sailing through an asteroid field: The space-bound contraption — a cross between an electronic Simon game, the front of a jukebox and a multi-colored Frisbee — screamed the 1970s as much as cursive ELO script printed on T-shirts.

The whimsical visuals extended to a spinning 45 RPM single, glowing amplifier tubes, enchanted forests, high-tech subways and pulsing disco balls. They complemented streaming lasers and a host of associated illumination that underscored not only the first two-thirds of the band’s name, but conveyed the brightness and feel-good spirit inherent in a majority of the material.

Lynne reached back to his roots with British band The Move (a rendition of the proto-glam “Do Ya”) as well as his earliest days with ELO (the prog-leaning “10538 Overture,” the band’s first single). Though slightly deeper, his understated voice retained its expressive cool-soul qualities and subtle English accent. Lynne occasionally managed to pull falsetto notes out of his back pocket yet largely relied on others in the ensemble to cover the high ranges, substitute on certain verses and craft the stacked harmonies that sent favorites like the dramatic “Steppin’ Out,” wave-swept “Livin’ Thing” and gliding “Evil Woman” into the stratosphere.

Jeff Lynne of ELO performs at the United Center Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Chicago. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

Jeff Lynne's ELO performs at the United Center on Sept. 27, 2024, in Chicago. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

Rooney opens for Jeff Lynne's ELO at the United Center on Sept. 27, 2024, in Chicago. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

Donavan Hepburn ensured everything that went up eventually came down. Flashing smiles and striking an animated presence behind his kit, the drummer commanded rhythms and provided a sturdy, dynamic foundation for anthems and ballads alike. It would’ve been great to watch Hepburn freelance on a handful of cuts or frequently mash with the authority he demonstrated on the explosive coda of “Turn to Stone” and cymbal-crash punctuation of “Do Ya.”

Nonetheless, Hepburn proved invaluable in helping ELO maintain a vise-grip tightness over the grooves, and bestowed “All over the World” and “Last Train to London” with snappy beats that took the songs out of old discos and placed them in modern clubs. Along with the dance-friendly “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” and “Don’t Bring Me Down,” both complete with modulated vocals, they revealed ELO’s major influence on later cutting-edge electronic, psychedelic and art-rock artists.

Long considered by certain critics and rock purists as the antithesis of cool, and someone whose albums would have certainly been targets for incineration at the Disco Demolition at Chicago’s Comiskey Park in 1979, Lynne is going out in style as a fashionable experimentalist. Strange magic, indeed.

Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.

Setlist from the United Center Sept. 27: “One More Time” “Evil Woman” “Do Ya” (The Move cover) “Showdown” “Believe Me Now” “Steppin’ Out” “Last Train to London” “Rockaria!” “10538 Overture” “Strange Magic” “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” “Can’t Get It Out of My Head” “Fire on High” “Livin’ Thing” “Telephone Line” “All over the World” “Turn to Stone” “Shine a Little Love” “Don’t Bring Me Down”

Encore “Mr. Blue Sky”

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Relive The Grand Tour’s Unscripted Episode As Jeremy Clarkson And Co Jab Back At Fans Complaints

When The Grand Tour plans a new episode, a certain amount of scripting is needed. Less so with the most recent show structure, but when Jeremy Clarkson , Richard Hammond, and James May were powering through six or so episodes a season alongside an audience and a tent, they needed to plan their films, talking points, and storylines. Fans are quick to point out scripting and paint it in a negative light, but it’s a must-have part of making a good episode.

Because of this, the trio decided to make fun of this fact with their episode  Unscripted , which focussed on what an episode would look like if there was no planning beforehand. Of course, this episode was just as scripted as every other episode, but it was a funny insight into the planning behind the show.

Now, thanks to a recent upload from The Grand Tour , we can relive the moment of Jeremy Clarkson reviewing the potent Audi TTRS and having to pull over to think about how he should describe the sound of the engine. He decided to describe it as a “happy hippopotamus,” which was a weirdly accurate description. Soon, Hammond catches up to him in an Ariel Nomad, shouting abuse at him down his radio. They race very briefly before coming to the surprising end of the road, blaming it on the lack of planning and scouting.

This was an interesting jab back from The Grand Tour about the importance of scripting, while still being cloaked in their usual comedy of Clarkson, Hammond and May.

Did you enjoy it? Let me know in the comments!

Alex Harrington

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News / Grand tour of Moscow, Russia

On Monday, 16th of December, we published virtual tour, which have been shooting over the most famous sights of Moscow. Also we created a brief summary «Moscow, the best» , which contains 22 panoramas of the most interesting places of the city. For today «Grand tour of Moscow, Russia» is our largest project, it includes 107 aerial panoramas. There was no similar shooting in the history of Moscow.

«Russia-1» TV channel published a video reportage about the «Grand tour of Moscow».