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went to see Jane Root to tell her we didn’t want a
girl. She looked at us and said: “Fine, do what you
think is best. I’m not fussed either way.”
With Gendergate sorted, we thought we were
free to finalize the lineup, but the BBC Med-
dling Department wasn’t finished. Jeremy was
campaigning for James, but we were told a trio of
Jeremy, James and Richard was too “middle-class
public-schoolish type blokes of a similar age.”
“And?” we replied. “Well, it’s all a bit cheese
and cheese, as opposed to chalk and cheese,”
came the response. After much cheese-related
arguing, we lost, and cheesy James was kicked in
favor of chalky Jason Dawe, who I recall was fairly
middle-class and of a similar age.
Still, our lineup problems were not over. We
still needed a real ace driver, with a racing back-
ground, and Tiff Needell was not an option be-
cause the BBC wanted a new-look Top Gear. And
if we had a racing driver, he would, like Tiff, have
to present films, but (a) there weren’t enough
films in the hour to go round, and (b) racing
drivers aren’t known for their camera charisma.
One evening, I was trying all sorts of presenter
permutations on our massive whiteboard when
Jeremy rocked up. “You know what, I can now
actually do the slidey tail-out driving like Tiff did
on old Top Gear,” he said. “But what I can’t do are
the precise laps we need to get the lap times for
the board. We still need a racing driver for that.”
“Yeah, who then needs to be able to speak,
and we’re back where we started,” I replied.
Then Jeremy’s light bulb lit up: “Hang on, why
does he need to speak? He could just be a bloke,
in a suit and helmet, and he does the lap times
and he never speaks. And we never even have to
see him, or know who he is! He’ll be like a thing
on the show! He could be like The Gimp in Pulp
Fiction—we could call him The Gimp!”
Thus, The Gimp was born. All we needed was
a racing driver to fill the role, preferably someone
who was discreet, a shrinking violet who didn’t
like to talk too much, and so we chose Perry Mc-
Carthy, the only man whose mouth works faster
than most of the cars he’s driven. Perry also told
us where we could stick our notion of calling him
The Gimp, so we settled on The Stig.
‘WE SHOULD FORGET
ABOUT REPORTING
ON OTHER PEOPLE’S
CAR EVENTS. MAKE
YOUR OWN WORLD’
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