The BBC has been caught out again and has admitted that the end to last year’s caravan special of Top Gear was staged.
The Mail on Sunday forced the BBC to admit that the flame-filled finale of the episode was a fake, and that £1000 was spent to have a fire engine and six crew members on standby.
A Dorset Fire Service spokeswoman commented: “They wanted us to make it look real. We treated it as a genuine fire.”
The BBC commented that viewers had not been misled because the sequence was obviously ‘slapstick’ with a ‘sitcom ending’.
The episode featured the TG trio causing a huge tailback after attempting to do a three point turn in the road and then attracting police attention, crashing their caravan into a bollard and reversing it over a tent.
The end of the piece saw Clarkson in the caravan trying to cook chips, starting a small chip pan fire and asking the others (who were outside): “How do you put a pan fire out?” before yelling: “It’s no longer a pan fire, it’s a van fire.” Then there is a small explosion and the boys try to smother the flames with foam mattresses – which also catch light. Soon after, they are joined by the Fire Service who deal with the ‘emergency’.
A BBC spokeswoman commented: “It was Top Gear taking a comedy look at caravanning. Of course the fire service was on site. We wouldn’t contemplate starting a fire without having relevant safety measures in place.”
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