’Top Gear’ spins into more controversy

LONDON: Chris Evans, the new host of BBC TV’s popular “Top Gear” motoring show apologized on Monday for a stunt filmed near the Cenotaph war memorial in central London which was widely criticized for showing a lack of respect.
Images splashed across the pages of British newspapers showed the show’s co-host, US actor Matt LeBlanc, speeding and spinning a car with a professional driver along a deserted Whitehall, the road near Parliament which is home to government offices as well as the Cenotaph.
As the car performed 360-degree turns, clouds of smoke from burning tire rubber dramatically obscured the 96-year-old memorial in one long-range TV camera shot.
“It does not look good at all,” Evans told listeners of his BBC Radio program. “On behalf of the Top Gear team and Matt, I would like to apologize unreservedly for what these images seem to portray.”
Retired army officer Col. Richard Kemp said the filming on Sunday was an error of judgment and that Westminster Council should never have allowed it to go ahead.
The council in turn said the BBC producers had gone beyond what was agreed and had never given approval for the car to carry out wheelspins down Whitehall.
The BBC later said it would not broadcast footage of the Cenotaph in the episode.
“The Cenotaph was at no point intended to feature in the program and therefore will not appear in the final film,” it said in a statement.
“We would like to make it absolutely clear that the Top Gear team has the utmost respect for the Cenotaph, what it stands for, and those heroic individuals whose memory it serves so fittingly.”