The Lighter Side of Life with Kate Mason: Resignations stepping up a gear as Evans goes
Replacing Jeremy Clarkson and co was always going to be a poisoned chalice from the moment the checkered flag signalled the start of a new series. The problem is poor old Chris was written off and consigned to the scrap yard before he even warmed his tyres up.
There were those that criticised him for copying the tried and tested Clarkson formula and those that argued too much had changed - He was set up as the fall guy from the start and destined to fail. He could have produced the best presenting performance of all time and still wouldn’t have succeeded. The problem is the show is so synonymous with Clarkson, Hammond and May that some viewers were never going to give the reboot a chance.
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Hide AdInstead I remained open-minded and genuinely enjoyed the series that seemed to improve from week to week.
But with plummeting viewing figures, daily abuse from Twitter trolls and constant calls for Chris to be sacked it all proved too much.
And as predicted the presenter announced he was stepping down from the BBC Two motoring show on Monday. He said he had given it his best shot “but sometimes that’s not enough”.
Despite Evans’ departure coming just hours after UKIP’s Nigel Farage stepped down, in a move similar to that of a rat fleeing a sinking ship, Evans received more column inches and more flack for that matter.
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Hide AdThe presenter seemed more puzzled than anyone during his newspaper run down on the radio he said: “Of course there was another high-profile, much more important resignation yesterday that doesn’t make some of the front pages, and that’s Nigel Farage stepping down from a very influential political party that had a lot to do with the EU referendum.”
The presenter is the latest in a long line of high profile resignations in the past few weeks joining David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Roy Hodgson - at least it will make for an interesting queue at the job centre.