Synopsis/Details
Top Gut concerns a motley crew of cab drivers who consider themselves the best of the best of the best, and what happens to their collective male pride when a female maverick upends their decades long dominance. A pastiche of every hyper-masculine movie you’ve ever seen (Top Gun, Fast & Furious, The Expendables ((basically Jason Statham’s entire career)) the series is a light-hearted look at the absurdities of people who take themselves way too seriously, whilst planting all the cliches of OTT American action movies feet first on British soil
The drivers at ‘Top Taxis’ are a long-standing pillar of their local community, out in the sticks of deepest darkest Skelmersdale. They wear leather jackets and aviator shades, totally believing they’re the dogs bollocks. This is encapsulated by the fact each driver has a call sign – yup that’s right just like Tom Cruise and his fighter pilot chums in Top Gun – and they only refer to each other by their respective call signs. The humour comes from the straight-faced seriousness with which these idiots regard their profession, and the resulting reaction of the wider world. They drive like lunatics to get pensioners to bingo. Break every traffic code to make sure kids arrive at school on time. The car sequences highlight what happens when a jumped up plonker drives like The Stig through an urbanised area, and we get to milk the full comedic potential of ‘high-speed’ car chases played out in 20 mile an hour pedestrian zones
The main series arc concerns the battle of wills between George ‘Horsepower’ Ashraf and Louise ‘Throttle’ Minchin, two hard-headed sods who see each other as opponents. We begin the series with ‘Horse’ getting the job done despite the chagrin of his stressed-out boss Clarkson. After discovering his driving mentor – Hellraising octogenarian Colin ‘Asphalt’ Lodder – has been forcibly retired by the company Horse is sent into emotional freefall, taking his frustration out on no nonsense newbie Louise. She’s the first female driver on Top Taxis books, and as a result has to deal with all manner of sexist banter and schoolboy level sarcasm. Attempting to outdo one another we slowly being to see there’s a spark of attraction under the vitriol. We also examine the lives of the main players at Top Taxis; from Horse’s adoring second in command Simon ‘Axel’ Pragnell to Barry ‘Gearstick’ Murphy, Horse’s in-house nemesis. Not to mention newly retired Asphalt caning his pension for all it’s worth and overworked boss Clarkson, a man who’s only ever one tirade away from a massive heart attack…
Episodic incidents include Horse facing formidable ex Denise who left him for a non-driver, Throttle confronting her past as a getaway driver for a criminal gang, Gearstick’s five minutes of fame as a stunt driver in a TV advert, Clarkson implementing a karaoke element to the drivers cabs in order to bring in more business, and a punishing snowstorm that cripples the towns infrastructure. The series culminates with the company being sold to an Uber-type conglomerate, and Horse sharing a drunken smooch with Throttle following their works Christmas do.
