Matt LeBlanc’s on a mission to rev up Top Gear’s laughs
MATT LEBLANC is looking to ‘expand the comedy’ when the new season of Top Gear returns to our screens.
The former Friends star also seems to be steering away from the Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May era — by getting a less ‘petrolheady’ audience on board.
Speaking at a panel discussion in LA for his other BBC project Episodes, Matt said Top Gear was looking to ‘expand the comedy, try to have bigger, broader films, but it will be more of the same in the sense it starts with the car’.
He also emphasised that the show was looking to attract a more diverse audience, while batting off awkward questions about viewing figures.
‘I think we’ve tried to broaden the demographic of the show, try to make it not lose the sort of petrolhead nature of it but maybe open it up to people who maybe aren’t so petrolheady,’ he said.
Although viewing figuers have struggled to improve since the low point of Chris Evans’ tenure, LeBlanc’s last season attracted a younger audience who rated it ‘far higher’.
Matt has already shot sequences for the new season in Norway, France, Italy and California, and will return to film in the UK in the coming weeks.
Top Gear’s 25th series is due to air in spring 2018
Author: Anna Thomson
