BBC2
I’ll not dissemble, I thought Stringer Bellend was done for when Omar and Brother Boyzone blew his tits out in that shitty B&B Enterprises development money pit he was always turding around. Yet here he is on Idris Elba King of Speed, his look at the history of underground racing, glamourising the slaughter of thousands on our roads each year by reckless drivers.
I’ll not dissemble, I thought Stringer Bellend was done for when Omar and Brother Boyzone blew his tits out
String has always loved the drug speed since travelling around Baltimore in his dad’s Cortina as a child. Here he travels the world driving like a sociopath and revealing how criminals and deadbeats just like him shaped both the cars we drive and the life-threateningly tedious motorsports that exist today.
He talks to Junior Johnson, a getaway driver for bootleggers. The Ford V8 was the favoured GTFO vehicle of the gangsters as it was packing twice the horsepower of the police cars of the day. Blewnior went on to become a great stock car racer and he explains how NASCAR was pretty much invented by whiskey bootleggers. String takes a spin in a V8 and laughs as he outpaces a period police vehicle. “Wankers!” he shouts after them, driving without due care or attention.
And on it goes. He pays visits to members of the underground racing scene in Detroit, the drag strips of New Jersey and O.G. participants of the Cannonball Run – the redneck car race along the Atlantic coast that served as both anti-safety laws protest and insufferable dick swing convention.
The idea of speed as an addiction is a recurring one and everyone involved seems to be particularly pleased to confirm their addict status. It’s a circle jerk backslap and at the end of it only one thing is clear. Stringer Bellend is the most dangerous man on telly since Noel Edmonds.
The verdict: Idris Elba – King of Teed
Marks out of 10: 5