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I wouldn't want to be part of Jeremy Clarkson's legal team at the moment. Not one for abiding by the rules, he has been handed a long list of things he cannot say or else he will be sued by the BBC, reports The Telegraph, after he was sacked.
His new show's producer has claimed that it must not have a test track featuring the Stig, call the news section 'the news' or even describe Namibia as 'beautiful'.
The claim comes as his lawyers acting for the new Amazon show had warned the trio of presenters they risk being sued by the BBC if they incorporate elements that were too similar to Top Gear.
Andy Wilman, Clarkson's lifelong friend and producer of the new show, said legal discussions have become 'hilarious', as the lawyers even went as far as examining whether James May would be able to use the word 'cock' or not.
"They got funnier and funnier. We went to Namibia to make a big film," said Wilman. "The lawyers got out a film we had done [for Top Gear] in Botswana. The lawyers go through everything and they said, 'There's a scene in [Top Gear] where you're in the middle of the Okavango and you go, 'This scenery is beautiful', so watch that you don't do that. So we were in the desert in Namibia and we had to go, "for legal reasons, this scenery is shit'."
He explains the show's format would include a leaderboard showing how cars had performed, but the presenters had been forbidden from having handwritten lap times, for fear of stepping on Top Gear's toes and infringing upon its intellectual property rights.
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The Grand Tour is expected to be released in Autumn and Wilman has confirmed he and the presenters had a 'broken relationship' with the BBC after Clarkson was famously sacked for punching a producer on set.
We'll be watching to see how long it takes before Clarkson and the team slip up, deliberately no doubt, and put their legal team into action.
Words by Hamish Kilburn
Featured Image Credit:Topics: james may, TV and Film, Celebrity, BBC, The Grand Tour, Legal, TV, Amazon, Jeremy Clarkson, Top Gear