Clarkson’s Farm 3, Amazon Prime Video, review: Jeremy left streaky-eyed by the plight of the pig

A decade ago, Jeremy Clarkson was asked when he last cried. “My name is Jeremy. That makes me a man, and that means I don’t snivel,” he replied. Well, that was before his farming days. In the third series of Clarkson’s Farm (Amazon Prime Video), he is undone by some adorable piglets.

Pig farming is the latest wheeze dreamt up for Diddly Squat, Clarkson’s Cotswolds-based farm. But it turns out to be a heartbreaking business that leaves him in tears. “Harrowing” is the title of episode four, and it doesn’t just refer to tilling the land. “Pigs are classically terrible mothers,” a neighbouring farmer explains.

Clarkson and his partner, Lisa Hogan, end up bottle-feeding a newborn and keeping it in a cardboard box beside the Aga. He tries to rationalise it: “All farmers love their animals, and then they kill them.” He says this to the local butcher, who has made some sausages from Clarkson’s pigs. “This way, you can love them twice,” the butcher ventures.

This is a cuddlier Clarkson than we’ve ever seen. Don’t be alarmed, though: there is plenty of comedy. Most of this stems from his partnership with Kaleb Cooper. The series begins with Clarkson setting a challenge: he will attempt to make money from the 500 unfarmed acres of Diddly Squat, leaving Cooper in charge of the arable land. They have 12 months to see who makes the most profit.

One of Clarkson’s ideas is producing blackberry jam. When his attempts to pick the berries with a machine end in disaster – the scenes in which he and Cooper accidentally demolish a wall are the funniest of the series – he rigs up a Henry vacuum cleaner to do the job.

Cooper has comic timing to rival that of his boss. And even when he’s not trying to make us laugh, he does – a potentially nasty accident is rendered ridiculous because it is caused by him forgetting that he’s attached to an elastic safety harness. “We’ve got to get rid of all health and safety equipment on the farm. It’s really injuring people,” Clarkson concludes.

Ever-sensible land agent Charlie Ireland is on hand to manage expectations. Clarkson has a vision of his pigs truffling around the wood, turning over the soil as they look for acorns. “In an idyllic, Winnie-the-Pooh world, yes,” says Ireland, who points out that pigs make such a mess that “you will regenerate the woods into a sort of stock car track”.

This ensemble cast is what makes the show work so well, alongside a neat editing job that expertly turns months of footage into a coherent narrative.

“Admittedly, when it first started we were taking the p–s slightly,” Clarkson says at one point. He’s talking about the farm shop, which must now stick to the council’s rule of only selling items manufactured within a 16-mile radius. Some people thought Clarkson was taking the p–s with the whole farming enterprise. Three series in, it’s clear that he’s taking it seriously enough to move him to tears.

The first four episodes of Clarkson’s Farm 3 are on Amazon Prime Video now, with episodes 5-8 released on May 10