ALISON BOSHOFF: Farmer Jeremy Clarkson is set to harvest multi-millions with THREE new series of his Amazon Prime show

What a distinction just a few months could make. Rather less than a yr after being ‘cancelled’ for a printed assault on Meghan Markle, Jeremy Clarkson has agreed to signal a megabucks new cope with Amazon.

For many years Clarkson was the nation’s pre-eminent motoring journalist because of High Gear, however he was notably all at sea when making an attempt his hand as a farmer on Clarkson’s Farm.

The present, which started in 2021, has been an enormous world hit as viewers have adored watching him swear, wrestle and principally fail on Diddly Squat Farm in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.

The second sequence, which began streaming in February, was Prime Video’s most watched authentic present within the UK — by a mile. It simply beat the very costly The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Energy drama.

Now I am instructed Amazon need one other three sequence — and Clarkson and his workforce wish to carry on making them.

Nothing is signed but. Nonetheless, the expectation is {that a} deal — considered value a minimum of $250 million — can be introduced when the third sequence begins streaming in March or April subsequent yr.

At this level it isn’t clear whether or not Clarkson will keep it up with The Grand Tour, additionally on Prime Video, or with Who Desires To Be A Millionaire? for ITV.

Buddies of the presenter say they might not be stunned if, at 63, he determined to pay attention solely on Clarkson’s Farm any longer. Filming runs from March to October.

The forthcoming sequence goes to be all about pigs. Kaleb Cooper, the younger farming contractor who has turn out to be a star, stated just lately that Clarkson is ‘annoyingly’ good as a pig farmer: ‘I can not say an excessive amount of as a result of I will be instructed off, however Jeremy’s purchased some pigs this yr. And, annoyingly, he is a very good pig farmer.’

Clarkson’s newest guide — Diddly Squat: Pigs Would possibly Fly — got here out final month and was an prompt bestseller.

However he wrote himself into bother final December, with a newspaper column in regards to the Duchess of Sussex during which he professed to hate her ‘on a mobile degree’ and stated that he dreamed of her being paraded bare whereas a crowd threw excrement at her — a reference to a scene in TV’s Recreation Of Thrones.

He posted a prolonged apology on Instagram saying he had ‘fully tousled’ within the article, which is essentially the most complained about within the historical past of Press regulator IPSO. He additionally despatched an electronic mail to Prince Harry to precise his profound apologies.

Clarkson filmed a closing particular of The Grand Tour in Botswana this summer time with James Might and Richard Hammond and it is because of exit subsequent yr.

Effervescent TV presenter Claudia Winkleman says the key of her success is a capability to nap anyplace.

She instructed the How To Fail podcast: ‘I am a sleep fanatic, I nap on a regular basis. Actually I had all my household spherical for lunch and had a nap whereas they had been all there within the room – and there have been ten of us.

‘I used to be like: ‘Guys’, I’ve obtained to have some shut-eye.’ Laid on the couch, had a bit sleep.’

Di star’s ‘stunning’ ghost scenes 

Actress Elizabeth Debicki – Princess Diana in The Crown – has spoken for the primary time in regards to the expertise of depicting her as a ‘ghost’ who seems to each Prince Charles and The Queen.

Debicki describes the scenes between her and Dominic West, taking part in Prince Charles, as ‘stunning’. She stated: ‘We did not do any rehearsal. We form of simply opened our hearts up as a result of it is really easy to know what the Charles character is feeling, as a result of for anybody who’s misplaced anybody you realize, the second you lose them, the one factor you’ll do – you’ll give something for – is to speak to them yet one more time.

‘I feel what’s stunning is that it is an imagined Diana who has the liberty to say the issues she’s at all times needed to say to Charles, which is: ‘I’ve cherished you a lot’. I am actually glad that I obtained to say that in that character.’

Author Peter Morgan has stated that the Diana in these scenes shouldn’t be a ghost however a visualisation within the minds of her household.

Mathematician Hannah Fry can be making an attempt to maintain Ian Hislop and Paul Merton underneath management in Have I Received Information For You subsequent Friday. She’s been on the panel 5 occasions beforehand and remarks drily: ‘After I studied maths at college this isn’t how I anticipated it will prove.’

She was a part of a revival of Tomorrow’s World in 2017 however says resulting from gloom in regards to the destiny of the planet – over local weather change and AI – it would by no means come again.

‘There was a degree when everybody was enthusiastic about what was across the nook, however now I feel persons are scared about what lies forward.’

Janelle Monae says she has been dreaming of getting tea with iconic Jazz Age dancer Josephine Baker – after taking magic mushrooms. ‘It was superb,’ she declares.

And no marvel Baker has been on her thoughts, as a super-hot TV biopic of the dancer, titled De La Resistance, is now all programs go after the lifting of the writers’ and actors’ strikes, with Monae taking part in Baker.

The studio A24 is backing the sequence, which can consider Baker’s function spying for the French Resistance throughout WWII. The movie is being produced by Monae’s firm, Wondaland. It is primarily based on a guide, The Flame Of Resistance, which got here out in 2022. You may recognise Monae from the flicks Hidden Figures, Moonlight and Knives Out 2.

Non-binary Monae, who goes by ‘they’ or ‘she’, has an android alter ego who she calls upon in her music profession. Her 2023 album The Age Of Pleasure has simply been nominated for a Grammy.

She’s been nominated for ten Grammys since releasing her first album in 2003, however she’s not been so profitable within the UK since her No. 1 single We Are Younger in 2012. The Age Of Pleasure spent only one week within the charts at No. 49 and her final profitable single reached No. 74… in 2018.

Uh-oh… Brace for a horror present 

Dozens of behind-the-scenes and on-screen staff of This Morning have now been interviewed by barrister Jane Mulcahy KC, who’s compiling a report on the allegedly ‘poisonous tradition’ of the present for ITV.

Departed hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield have spoken to her, as has Eamonn Holmes, who was as soon as on the couch on a Friday and is now an outspoken critic of the present.

‘Individual X’ the younger colleague with whom Schofield had an ‘unwise however not unlawful’ relationship, can also be understood to have cooperated.

I am instructed that Mulcahy has proven an curiosity in two points particularly.

One is the ‘Holly bubble’ which noticed presenters Holly and Phil (pictured) having little or no to do with any of the crew or workers and thus being unaware of issues confronted by the rank and file.

The opposite concern is what’s being referred to as ‘the cult of Frizell’.

This refers to present boss Martin Frizell, underneath whose stewardship Schofield was unimpeachable and unchallenged. Frizell, previously an on-screen expertise himself, is at the moment within the difficult place of supporting his spouse, former TV presenter Fiona Phillips, who’s battling Alzheimer’s illness aged solely 62.

In September, government Vivek Sharma was employed to work on the present as Frizell’s deputy, arriving from Steph’s Packed Lunch on Channel 4, which has since been axed.

Those that learn the tea leaves say that the report goes to be ‘a horror present’ for ITV and there are claims that a few of those that had been beforehand there can be ‘relieved’ to be away from it.

Holly stop final month after an alleged plot to kidnap her was uncovered. A spokesman for ITV declines to remark and sources near Holly say that her choice to depart was nothing to do with the report.

It’s anticipated to return out shortly earlier than Christmas.

Vanessa Kirby is alleged to be the perfect factor about Ridley Scott’s lengthy and uneven movie Napoleon – and she or he obtained the gig after the primary alternative for Josephine, Jodie Comer, dropped out to be able to star within the play Prima Facie.

Now Kirby has been subbed in once more after Alicia Vikander dropped out of survival thriller Eden, which is being made in Australia with main man Jude Regulation.

The movie is a story of lust and insanity within the Galapagos Islands and is being directed by Ron Howard.

‘Always remember’: Dame Helen’s Holocaust plea 

Helen Mirren, who performed Israeli premier Golda Meir in Golda, launched final month, has been reflecting on her deep connection to Israel within the wake of the phobia assaults and battle within the nation.

Mirren confronted controversy for her portrayal, a few of it centred on the slightly apparent use of prosthetics to reinforce her bodily resemblance to Meir, who led the nation in 1973 through the Yom Kippur battle.

Mirren stated: ‘I’ve traditionally not had a deep profound understanding of Israel, however I’ve at all times had a reference to Israel. I do not know, I’ve at all times had a form of instinctive feeling about Israel.’

She added that she remembered Meir’s election as a ‘essential second’, because it was the primary time she had identified a girl main a rustic.

And she or he stated: ‘One of many causes that I’ve at all times supported Israel and felt for Israel is the Holocaust and my rising consciousness – as a baby rising up in London, post-war England – of what had really occurred.

‘It was so, so devastating and I nonetheless cannot fairly grasp it, you realize, it is ungraspable. And the truth that it was very shortly earlier than I used to be born — in my dad and mom’ lifetime.

‘It was so monstrous, so inconceivably inhuman that I’ve at all times felt that we should always remember.’

Director Man Nattiv stated: ‘Waking up on October 7 and seeing the precise factor that occurred to us in 1973 – occasions ten – I used to be gutted as was everybody else on our crew. Once we did this analysis for this film, we met with each single basic from 1973. And all of the individuals who wrote books. Everybody instructed us: ‘Pay attention, it was a debacle, however it would by no means occur once more’.

‘And there you go, it occurred once more, even worse. I really feel that this film… it has double which means now.’

After greater than 100 days of strike, the actors at the moment are unleashed, which signifies that campaigning for awards season, main as much as the Oscars, is all of the sudden in full swing.

This week we have had Annette Bening and Jodie Foster beating the drum for Nyad, Leonardo DiCaprio breaking into his hectic schedule of partying to advertise Killers of the Flower Moon, Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan trumpeting the Bernstein biopic Maestro and premieres for 4 big motion pictures: The Colour Purple, Saltburn, Napoleon and Might December. Plus Oppenheimer’s Chris Nolan has been giving interviews and Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White have been making the rounds for wrestling image The Iron Claw.

In the meantime, some initiatives are very quick out of the gate post-strike. One precedence for Netflix is the second season of Tim Burton’s Wednesday, a sensational hit final yr.

It may be filmed in Eire (final time, it was Romania) from April and is about to have extra horror than sequence one. There may even be extra of the connection between Wednesday Addams, performed by Jenna Ortega and her mom Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones).