The countdown to the highly anticipated second season of Clarkson’s Farm is on, with less than a day until the first episode drops.
Episode one of Jeremy Clarkson’s hit farming show launches on Amazon Prime Video tomorrow (Friday, February 10) with the remaining seven episodes following suit on Sunday (February 12).
In season one, viewers watched – and laughed – as the well-known and controversial TV presenter, known for racing cars most could only dream of being around, embarked on a journey to run his own farm.
While the enterprise itself was not successful (Clarkson made a £144 profit in his first year) the show certainly was, with Diddly Squat now meaning a lot more than nothing to many.
In season two, we see Clarkson come up with the idea to sell his produce via an on-farm shop and restaurant, and watch as he faces some of the legal issues that have made headlines over the past few months.
We also see the new farmer set about entering the world of dairy – which he admitted he knows “literally nothing” about – kicking off episode one by shopping for a herd of cows with ‘Cheerful Charlie’.
In episode two the Shorthorn herd settles in, albeit not before giving causing some trouble.
“It’s been a year of total disasters on the cow front. Absolute disasters, because I didn’t know anything, I shouldn’t have had cows. It was a mad thing to have got,” Clarkson admitted.
Later on the show discusses one of the perils of cattle farming: Bovine tuberculosis (TB) and badgers. Clarkson said this was a difficult topic to cover.
“That was one of the most difficult areas to cover because the badger is much-loved by most people in the country,” he said.
“In fact, the only people who absolutely hate badgers are farmers and people who work in the countryside.
“We thought, ‘what do we do?’ because if you want to make a popular show you have to say, ‘Oh, look at the little cuddly-wuddly badgers’.
“But I thought: No, it’s a farming show, and you’d lose your core audience, the farmers, if you went around, saying, ‘look at these sweet little animals’.”
Clarkson also decided not to stray away from showing other hard truths of farming, including what he called “tricky births”.
“If you want to know what life is like for farmers, you’ve got to put that in,” he said.
Kaleb Cooper, Clarkson’s farm hand, is still part of the operation in season two, helping with all sorts of tasks, including tagging and registering newborn calves.
Since the first season aired Cooper’s life looks a bit different – for example he now has 1.2 million Instagram followers – but he said that “nothing’s really changed”.
“I’m still working on the farm with Jeremy just as you saw in the first series. It’s a real job and it’s our real lives,” he said.
He does have two new additions to his life, one being a tractor, and the other being a family; Kaleb got engaged to his girlfriend of six years in December, with whom he has one son and another baby on the way.
“The dream is to buy my own farm and bring my kids up on my own family farm,” he said.
“I don’t think I can rest until that dream is fulfilled.”
Other fan favourites, including Clarkson’s Irish girlfriend Lisa and Gerald, are also back on screen for the second season of Clarkson’s Farm, and fans can also expect to see the team try its hand running a flock of chickens; growing chillies and making chilli sauce; artificially inseminating; facing planning officers; drilling crops; and much more.
Clarkson believes the popularity of the show’s first season was that it shows “the reality” of living and working in the countryside.
“You watch and think, ‘God, I’d love to do that’ but sometimes when it’s pouring with rain and everything’s gone wrong, you think, ‘well, I wouldn’t want to do that’,” he said.
“It’s all very real.”
