Top Gear opens auditions for co-presenter

The Guardian reports that Chris Evans and the new Top Gear team are to hold open auditions to find a co-presenter for the BBC2 show – with applications welcome from members of the public.

Chris said the auditions for the Top Gear role would be open to all. ‘Male, female, old, young, it doesn’t matter. The one thing that does matter if you’ve got to have a real appetite for cars, and you’ve got to know something about cars,’ he told BBC1’s The One Show.

‘The way James [May] and Richard [Hammond] were found was by auditioning, so we are going to hold auditions, not just for famous people, for people who are watching the show.’

BBC2 controller Kim Shillinglaw has indicated that the new show would feature more audience participation, including racing around its famous track, not a traditional part of Top Gear and a decisive break from its Clarkson-fuelled past.

Chris said the candidates, who will be required to submit a 30-second video, had to have an ‘appetite, hunger and need’ to host the motoring show, which will return to BBC2 in March or April next year. ‘If nobody’s good, nobody is going to get the job,’ he said.

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