Rachael Davis
Warning: this article contains explicit content that some readers may find offensive.
The fourth season of Clarkson’s Farm, available to stream in full on Prime Video, continued the story of former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson’s descent into full-blown rurality.
Once an unapologetic metropolitan with little concern for the countryside, Clarkson’s Farm has played host to something of a renaissance for the 65-year-old presenter.
Alongside partner Lisa Hogan, farm manager Kaleb Cooper, and many more regular faces on the farm, Clarkson has become a full-blown farmer at his Diddly Squat Farm in the Cotswolds, as well as a champion of British-produced goods.
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The presenter was prominent in the protests against the UK government’s decision to change inheritance tax laws around farming, and he has imbued his latest rural venture with a similar rage against the dying of the agricultural light.
In season four of Clarkson’s Farm, much of the series becomes focused on Clarkson’s purchase, renovation and opening of the Farmer’s Dog pub. The pub is almost exclusively stocked with British-produced food and drink, with only fleeting exemptions made to things like quinine in tonic water, and its beer taps flow with Hawkstone’s lager and cider.
Hawkstone, launched in 2021 by Clarkson and the Cotswold Brew Co, is based in Cheltenham and focuses on premium lager and cider produced from the fat of the UK’s land.
Along with its star having risen thanks to its featuring in the show and at the extremely-popular pub, Hawkstone has produced an advert which Clarkson claims has been 'banned'.
“Our first ever proper Hawkstone commercial and for some extraordinary reason, it’s been banned,” Clarkson captioned the video on Instagram.
It features a few dozen farmers singing an adapted version of 'Duo les fleurs', or the ‘The Flower Duet’, from the opera Lakme, of which you can find a particularly lovely rendition here.
"It’s difficult to put into the spoken word how hard it is to make Hawkstone’s lager. So instead, I’ve put it into a song for some farmers to sing," Clarkson says in the video.
“F**k me, it’s good!” sing the rousing vocalists, and once the tune’s played out Clarkson takes a sip of the stuff and says: “Hawkstone, it is f**king good.”
“Sometimes his genius is almost frightening,” said one approving comment.
Other comments included “Absolute genius!!”, “The best ad to ever grace the screen” and someone else reckoned it is “Darn right bloody genius.”
“Totally fabulous! Love seeing Kaleb in the choir there!” said another, referring to Clarkson’s long-suffering farm manager.
Clarkson is widely quoted as saying the advert is 'the best thing I’ve ever made, apart from a shepherd’s pie in 1988', and adding that the pushback is a 'c**k-up'.
"I’ve made my biggest, most heartfelt, and frankly, most expensive advert ever, and it’s been banned," various outlets quote him as saying, adding: "The fun police in their beige offices have decided that the public can’t be trusted to watch it. It’s been kicked off the telly, silenced on the radio, and barred from the cinema."
He hasn't specifically said who has allegedly banned the advert, but the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) told FOODbible: "We can confirm that the ASA hasn't banned TV and radio ads for Hawkstone Lager. The ASA responds to complaints about ads once they’re in the public domain (which these ads are not), and we don’t comment on individual ads unless they have been subject to our formal investigation process."
Perhaps we’ll get to a place where we’ve collectively agreed that swearing is just fine and dandy, but sadly for Clarkson it seems that day has yet to come for broadcast television.