Top Gear hires female executive producer Lisa Clark

[jack_christie]

Top Gear hires female executive producer Lisa Clark amid reports Jodie Kidd will join Chris Evans fronted show

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...l-join-chris-evans-fronted-show-10426469.html

Lisa Clark appointed as executive producer for Top Gear

Lisa is as good as it gets when it comes to making big, important television shows. She's funny, sassy, super-experienced and has always absolutely LOVED cars. Chris Evans

Date: 29.07.2015 Last updated: 30.07.2015 at 08.30
Category: BBC Two

Seasoned entertainment and comedy producer Lisa Clark is to become the new executive producer of hit BBC Two programme Top Gear. She takes up the post on Monday 3 August.

Lisa has been producing entertainment and comedy programmes for over 25 years - from the very beginning of The Big Breakfast and the multi-award-winning live Saturday night show Don't Forget Your Toothbrush, to the groundbreaking panel show Shooting Stars and most recently the critically acclaimed sitcom Vic & Bob?s House Of Fools.

Lisa was Head of Comedy at LWT and then a Senior Commissioning Executive at the BBC. In 2001, she set up Pett Television with Reeves & Mortimer and together they devised and produced a range of award-winning entertainment formats and scripted comedies across all channels and platforms, from Celebrity Dog School on BBC One, Tittybangbang on BBC Three, Angelos Epithemiou on Channel 4 and Matt Berry Does on BBC iPlayer, continuing to produce an impressive array of breakthrough talent as well as working closely with established stars.

Katie Taylor, Controller of Entertainment and Events, BBC Production, says: ?I am really excited that someone of Lisa's calibre and experience will be taking Top Gear on a new journey with Chris Evans - it will be a heady mix.?

Chris Evans, Top Gear presenter, says: ?Lisa is as good as it gets when it comes to making big, important television shows. She's funny, sassy, super-experienced and has always absolutely LOVED cars.?

Lisa says: ?This is an incredibly exciting and challenging opportunity, which I couldn't resist. I'm confident that after 14 years, Pett can continue to make original and probably funnier shows in my absence.?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/la...ffice&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=corporate

Lisa Clark @PettTv



Hiring Lisa Clark Seems like a good move.

Hope the Jodie Kidd story is not true, unwatchable sometimes. Prefer someone like VBH any day.

Looks like TG has a producer with a good sense of humour!

 

[Spectre]

...

None of the shows mentioned as being made under her aegis were particularly interesting/funny to me or struck me as worth keeping even a single episode of, and I say that as a BritCom fan who has every episode of Fawlty Towers, Keeping Up Appearances, and Yes Minister (among others.) I don't see how her past work in any way qualifies her to run a motoring show (some would say it *dis*qualifies her). This smells of 'forced diversity'.

 

[911]

Sure thing she "has absolutely loved cars". Who do they think they can fool with that...

 

[Spectre]

Sure thing she "has absolutely loved cars". Who do they think they can fool with that...

They think they can fool everyone.

- - - Updated - - -

Check out her IMDB entry - no real long-running shows, nothing memorable, whole bunch of 'smash hit' one-and-dones and one-off TV movies. She's not even run a successful series for much more than a single season. Her longest run was an 8 episode season plus one episode before and another one after and then she was gone.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1075297/?ref_=ttawd_awd_1

 

[Matt2000]

I can't see this going well for people like us. Of the shows they list that she has been involved with, I have either never heard of them or didn't like them. No idea what that means.

 

[Spectre]

I can't see this going well for people like us. Of the shows they list that she has been involved with, I have either never heard of them or didn't like them. No idea what that means.

I can't see this going well for people *not* like us either. This lady appears to have been the kiss of death for a number of productions.

 

[DaShowstoppa]

If you look at her early credits, they're pretty much "Chris Evans" vehicles. Also alarm bells should be ringing that a "comedy" person has been brought in, which tells you the new Top Gear is going to be "comedy and entertainment" rather than a "car" show. It was the forced tilt to comedy that damaged TG in the first place.

I just want an entertaining car show damn it, is that too much to ask?

 

[jack_christie]

They think they can fool everyone.

- - - Updated - - -

Check out her IMDB entry - no real long-running shows, nothing memorable, whole bunch of 'smash hit' one-and-dones and one-off TV movies. She's not even run a successful series for much more than a single season. Her longest run was an 8 episode season plus one episode before and another one after and then she was gone.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1075297/?ref_=ttawd_awd_1

That imdb is incomplete, two of her big shows aren't listed:

big breakfast ran for ten years
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Breakfast

Don't Forget Your Toothbrush
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Forget_Your_Toothbrush

Not sure about car history, but on the TV and comedy side she has serious history.

Prepared get the benefit of the doubt to anyone who produces Vic & Bob and Matt Berry. Anything to break out of the old recycled TG jokes that are wearing thin.

Interesting to see who Chris adds to the team to give it more car nuts.

 

[Dino]

The fact that the tree stooges have signed a deal is no. 1 on reddit (doesn't mean everything, but something), while nobody who's not a total TG fanatic (us) cares about this, could be some indicator of future success.

 

[jack_christie]

The fact that the tree stooges have signed a deal is no. 1 on reddit (doesn't mean everything, but something), while nobody who's not a total TG fanatic (us) cares about this, could be some indicator of future success.

Might be the better deal...

 

[Spectre]

That imdb is incomplete, two of her big shows aren't listed:

big breakfast ran for ten years
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Breakfast

She wasn't the original executive producer and was brought in late - in 1996. She 'revamped' the show and it basically ended up being a slow motion train wreck after that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Breakfast#Relaunch

Apparently it ended up being a disaster and she is at least partially responsible for the death of the show. She was there from mid-96 until she got the boot in 97. Her disastrous reimagination-on-the-fly of the show was not something it could recover from easily.

https://books.google.com/books?id=W...nepage&q=Lisa Clark The Big Breakfast&f=false

If she had been a successful showrunner, she would have been kept on for more than the year. She wasn't.

So, yeah, basically this woman kills shows.

 

[gaasc]

If you look at her early credits, they're pretty much "Chris Evans" vehicles. Also alarm bells should be ringing that a "comedy" person has been brought in, which tells you the new Top Gear is going to be "comedy and entertainment" rather than a "car" show. It was the forced tilt to comedy that damaged TG in the first place.

I've highlighted a very important point.

 

[Spectre]

I've highlighted a very important point.

Specifically, 'comedy' that's mostly politically correct and almost certainly will get run by the powers that be at BBC HQ for approval before inclusion - and therefore won't be very funny if at all.

So let's see... There?s a chipmunk for a presenter, a woman with a reverse midas touch as show runner?.

Now all we need is a co-presenter who?s a blind amputee lesbian single mother, recently immigrated to the UK from Africa who hates cars because they?re not 'green' and we?ll have the perfect 'acceptable to all' BBC show!

 

[gaasc]

Spectre, I'm offended!

She's not a vegetarian.

 

[Spectre]

Spectre, I'm offended!

She's not a vegetarian.

I heard that was the last position they needed filled. The second presenter position for a militant gay male vegan transvestite with mental health issues has already been cast.

 

[Tzarrim]

My mild dislike for Evans is slowly turning into a strong contempt, I never bothered with him before but the more I read and hear....

 

[Interrobang]

[...]Also alarm bells should be ringing that a "comedy" person has been brought in, which tells you the new Top Gear is going to be "comedy and entertainment" rather than a "car" show. ?

No change there then ...

?

I?ve been all up for changing up the whole Top Gear formula and I?m willing to give anyone at least a chance to show what they want to do with the show. Despite the whole Clarkson-mess - the show as it was, had lost all appeal for me in the end. So yeah. Bring in new people with different backgrounds, let them have a shot at it. If they do well, good for all us, if they fail - I think we?ll let them know.
I?m not a fan of condemning changes in the show or staff at this point of time ... let them do it differently, let?s see the result and then let us judge it.

 

[MWF]

Amen to that. People seem far too willing to write it all off before seeing a single second of it.

 

[Spectre]

Amen to that. People seem far too willing to write it all off before seeing a single second of it.

The problem is that we've seen the other stuff this team-up has produced in the past, and it's pretty much all crap. Chances are pretty good that anything further from said team will also be a steaming pantsload of do not want.

 

[MWF]

Don't worry, I will be the first to call it a steaming heap if that is what it turns out to be but right now I will reserve judgement.