TV FILMS OF THE WEEK
did we smash it. And we really enjoyed it,” Chris recalls. “Matt, Rory and I front the programme, but the size of the show behind the scenes is a juggernaut. It sounds so glib, but the three of us can’t do it unless everyone else is mega at their job.” Numerous sequences were filmed on Top Gear’s famous test track, where a fresh crop of celebrities attempt to impress with their driving skills, and in its rather draughty studio. There are also appearances from German race ace Sabine Schmitz, F1 pundit Eddie Jordan and The Stig, but the focus is the three-way partnership at the centre of it all. “What people forget is for the three guys that were on the show before us, it took them a while to build up a rapport,” notes Matt, in reference to the previous line-up of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.
“This is now the first season for the three of us and it does take a little while. You take three people, put them together in a room and say, ‘It’s in your interest to get along’, and everyone is open to getting along – but it takes a little while to speed up the shorthand.
“What’s great is we’re now getting to a point where we’re really starting to click. We are having so much fun together.”
Chris describes Matt as “a big friendly bear”, and, “much wiser than people give credit for”.
Matt, in turn, says: “Chris has this vocabulary that I need to carry a pocket dictionary around for”.
Both consider Rory to be the most competitive of the three of them – which he doesn’t deny.
“We are all very competitive, but something has clicked in my brain which says, ‘I refuse to lose. Win at all costs’,” admits Rory, who particularly enjoyed driving a Volkswagen Golf GTI (“It’s not on the level of a Porsche but in the right hands, it is quicker”).
Matt insists he didn’t embark on this series “with any pre-conceived ideas”, something he’s learnt though experience.
“I was more like, ‘OK, what’s coming this year?’ I have tried to imagine what they are going to throw at me,” he adds, “but I always fall shy.” MARTIN SCORSESE’S hard-hitting third feature film truly marked him out as one of America’s most exciting directors, demonstrating many of the themes and stylistic touches that would recur throughout his career. It also marked his first collaboration with his frequent leading man Robert De Niro. Harvey Keitel co-stars as Charlie, a young Italian-American who feels torn between his Catholic faith and his desire to rise through the ranks of the mob. To ease his conscience, Charlie takes it upon himself to protect his friend Johnny Boy (an electrifying De Niro), a reckless, self-destructive gambler who is in debt to the local loan sharks. SCREEN version of the musical documenting the real-life discovery of the bodies of five women in Suffolk in 2006, in the words of residents of the titular Ipswich street. When local man Steve Wright is arrested, battle lines are drawn between residents, including bubbly mother Julie (Olivia Colman, pictured), the invasive media and the working girls who ply their trade nearby.