Richard Hammond: ‘When we’re together, everything goes wrong’

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email Get Simon Calder’s Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “We were supposed to go to Russia to shoot another big, movie length, faraway place,” says The Grand Tour’s producer, Andy Wilman, 58, of the timing of lockdown. Describing the forthcoming “mini special” as “an unplugged album”, Clarkson, 61, says it’s a change of pace that “some people might quite like”. “Jeremy was – and he’d be the first one to admit it – a bit nervous,” says Wilman, describing the presenter as having smoked “three quarters of a million fags” in his lifetime. “Jeremy, ever the optimist, was going, ‘we’ll never get there, we’ll never get there’” smirks Wilman of the run-up to the shoot.