Jeremy Clarkson returned to television screens tonight with a new advert for his beer and cider brand Hawkstone, hours after revealing his prostate cancer diagnosis.
The 40-second commercial promoted the presenter’s growing Hawkstone Brewery, which produces the drinks at a site near Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire.
The advert featuring the broadcaster and his Clarkson’s Farm co-star Kaleb Cooper aired in the final break before England’s World Cup match against Croatia on ITV.
The clip entitled ‘Kaleb’s Leap’ shows a comical moment in a pub where a freshly-poured pint is knocked before Cooper carries out a slow-motion dive to save it.
As Cooper flies through the air, his life of mud, sweat and toil while farming flashes before his eyes – before he catches the pint at the end as Clarkson watches on.
The campaign for Hawkstone, which was born from the barley grown on Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm, is a nod to the brand’s tagline ‘Hard to make, Easy to drink’.
Cooper, who has become known for his banter with Clarkson, said: ‘It was a long day for 40 seconds on the telly. Could’ve harvested a whole field in that time.
‘But, if it shows everyone the effort that goes into making a proper British beer, then it’s worth it. And I was pretty happy with my very first stunt too.’
It comes after Hawkstone’s first lager advert was banned in July last year by the Advertising Standards Authority which deemed that it was ‘not compliant’ with rules.
This is thought to have been due to explicit language in the advert, which saw a group of farmers perform an anthem ending with the chant: ‘F*** me, it’s good.’
Clarkson announced the new advert during an Instagram video yesterday evening, in which he said: ‘Hello everybody, got some good news and some sombre news.
‘Good news is that Hawkstone has finally had an advert accepted and it’ll be shown just before kick-off in the England match tomorrow evening.
‘Sombre news – Clarkson’s Farm, ordinarily we try to keep the show bucolic and charming, and cheerful, but two episodes which drop in the middle of the night tonight are, they’re none of those things, really. They’re a difficult watch, they’re really, really difficult.’
Clarkson then revealed he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, sharing the news in the latest episodes of the fifth season of his series Clarkson’s Farm which came out overnight, saying the disease is ‘aggressive’ but had been discovered early.
‘I’ve got cancer,’ the former Top Gear host told farm manager Kaleb Cooper and land agent Charlie Ireland during discussions about harvest planning.
The TV presenter said he expected to be ‘fine’ but would be out of action ‘for a while’, before revealing in the final episode of the series that he had undergone an operation to remove part of his prostate.
He said: ‘I won’t know whether it’s worked or not until November probably… The prostate, 10 per cent of it’s dead, the 10 per cent where the cancer is.’
Speaking from a hospital bed at the end of the season finale, Clarkson revealed he had experienced complications during treatment.
He said: ‘We started season five with me in a hospital bed and here we are at the end of season five and I’m back in a hospital bed.’
The 66-year-old reflected on the future of the show.
Clarkson added: ‘What I wanted to say was if this is all successful, I’ll see you for season six, and if it isn’t, I won’t. Take care, everyone.’
Gerald Cooper, a farmhand on the show, had revealed in an earlier series that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and later said he was cancer free in 2024.
In the final episode of the fifth series, Clarkson also referenced Cooper’s past diagnosis, saying they could ‘now share medical war stories’.
As the pair were catching up on the farm, Clarkson said he had undergone the operation and said: ‘Fingers crossed it’s worked. I tell you what though. Catheter. Honestly no, that was the worst.’
The diagnosis comes almost two years after Clarkson underwent a heart procedure, which saw him fitted with two stents to improve blood flow to the heart.
He said his doctor had told him to stop working following the operation and that he had been advised to replace work with golf in a newspaper column at the time.
The TV presenter previously quit smoking after contracting pneumonia on holiday in Spain.
Clarkson’s Farm follows the long-time television presenter and his crew as they navigate the challenges of running Diddly Squat Farm near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.
Since deciding to run his farm in 2019 and subsequently launching his popular reality series, Clarkson has become a vocal supporter of farmers and attended a protest in London against the Government’s move to introduce inheritance tax on farmland in November 2024.
The sixth series of the show is due to air in 2027.
