Chris Evans gives up TFI Friday role to focus on Top Gear

 

 Chris Evans is to bow out from future series of TFI Friday, the Channel 4 entertainment show, to focus on replacing Jeremy Clarkson as the host of BBC’s Top Gear.

 He returned in the autumn to front 10 episodes of the show he first hosted from 1996 to 2000, bringing in high-profile guests including U2, Justin Bieber and Quentin Tarantino, but a source for the show confirmed there were “no plans for TFI to come back”.
“TFI was only ever envisaged as a one-off series. There have been some preliminary conversations about the potential for it to return but timing difficulties on both sides mean that there are no plans for TFI to come back,” the source said.
Evans’ attention will instead be on Top Gear, which returns in early May with him at the helm, alongside the German racing driver Sabine Schmitz, the journalist Chris Harris and the ex-Formula One driver David Coulthard.
They replace Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, who left when Clarkson’s contract was not renewed after he punched a producer.
The Sunday Times has reported that preparations for the new Top Gear are “in a shambles”.
Evans has been pre-recording segments and in a recent magazine column he admitted he had worked for 26 hours straight covering his BBC Radio 2 show, TFI Friday and Top Gear.
He wrote: “It began with the usual 4.30am Friday start for the breakfast show.

“After that, it was straight to TFI Friday. All I could think of was my third job of the day, jumping on a motorbike the moment TFI finished ... I got back home at 6.40am on Saturday – 26 hours and 10 minutes after my alarm had gone off.”
A source close to Top Gear is reported as saying: “Chris has been overcommitted, with even BBC bosses surprised that he took on TFI as well as Top Gear. The pressure on him has been immense.”
Losing the experienced production team behind the Top Gear has also caused teething troubles.
The source said: “They’ve brought in a production team that doesn’t know anything about cars. Writers from Top Gear magazine have had to be called over to suggest ideas and offer advice on what cars to film.”
The latest blow for Evans was the loss of his long-time colleague Lisa Clark, just five months after she had been brought in as executive producer on Top Gear. The show’s script editor, Tom Ford, is also departing.
Clarkson, Hammond and May will present an as-yet-untitled motoring show on Amazon Prime next year.