Has a TV villain ever had so thorough a makeover as Jeremy Clarkson, one-time petrolhead supreme and bete noire of (take your pick) cyclists, Argentinians and admirers of Meghan Markle? Drummed out of the BBC for punching his Irish producer in 2015, the ex-Top Gear man has so thoroughly cuddly-ified himself via agricultural epic Clarkson’s Farm that it is bracing to recall he was once the most controversial man in Britain. Clarkson’s years of controversy feel a long way in the past as series five of Clarkson’s Farm (Prime Video, from Wednesday) comes around. Heartstrings are tugged from the off as a dodgy ticker sees the proprietor of Diddly Squat Farm whisked off in an ambulance. How near did he come to the end credits? “F**king close,” he confesses to perpetually wide-eyed assistant Kaleb Cooper. Ever the provider of bingeable content, Clarkson is well aware that meditations on mortality are not what viewers want. To that end, his ill health is soon glossed over and it’s back to the main event which is, soil and dairy-based derring-do, where Clarkson cavorts around for the cameras. It is a reminder that there is nothing in this universe less authentic than “reality TV”. Just as Top Gear was scripted to within an inch of existence, so Clarkson’s Farm pings from one set-piece to the next. These include a visit by Formula One driver Oscar Piastri, who tries to reverse a tractor into a barn for his TikTok channel. Then it’s the arrival of The Corrs for a gig at Clarkson’s pub, The Farmer’s Dog. There’s a bit of pretend tension as it is revealed, pre-show, that the loos are in a state and there isn’t enough electricity to simultaneously power the band’s kit and keep the sausage-fryer on in the kitchen. We are also reintroduced to Clarkson’s Dublin partner, Lisa Hogan. She surprises him by splurging £10,000 on a speciality breed of “flat-faced” lambs. Clarkson is horrified, she reckons she’ll make a profit if they can sell some to the professional soccer players who apparently covet these sheep for their private menageries (you really do learn something new every day). Elsewhere his woes include a pub-going clientele who apparently love to pinch Jezza merch. Clarkson estimates that patrons are stealing 400 beer glasses from his pub, per week. Amid all the excitement he somehow finds time to attend a farmer’s march in London – an event that was apparently controversial in real life but which is here folded into the narrative about post-hospital Clarkson pushing himself too hard too soon. One of the contradictions about Clarkson is that, despite apparent little Englander tendencies, he’s always been hugely pro-Europe. On Top Gear he would routinely disparage American cars while drooling all over the latest Lamborghini Bugatti etc. He was conspicuously anti-Brexit, which he said made him “want to sit in a gutter and weep”. His Europhile instincts are on display once again in Clarkson’s Farm as he and Cooper travel to the Netherlands. They are astonished by the country’s futuristic farming practices, including a custom-built potato storage facility larger than the soundstage for a Harry Potter film. There will be those who will never get over Clarkson’s boorish history. It is remarkable he still has a career when you consider the manner of his departure from Top Gear and the furore over a 2022 Sun column when he fantasised about Meghan Markle being forced to undertake a Game of Thrones style “shame walk”. But he seems to have learned from his errors and the tone in these early episodes is largely soft and inoffensive. A cuddly Clarkson? On Diddly Squat farm, pigs truly do fly.