Who on earth would accuse James May of being obnoxious? Even back in the day, when he was presenting Top Gear and The Grand Tour with Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond, he was – surely? – the least insufferable of the trio.
He was a bloke’s bloke, granted, but he plays the harpsichord for goodness’ sake, and collects art. He’s not on record as having punched a TV producer (like Clarkson), or for suggesting men who eat ice cream are gay (Hammond). Yet he tells me his partner, art and dance critic Sarah Frater, would hurl the accusation at him when he came back from filming stints with the other two.
‘When we did the big Grand Tour specials, Sarah always said, “When you come home you’re slightly obnoxious because you’re still buzzed up. You’ve been with those two and you’ve been shouting and drinking.” That might have been true. It might have taken a few days to calm down and go back to being me. I’m actually quite homely at heart.’ He seems mortified. ‘I hope I’m not really obnoxious, but TV does exaggerate your characteristics so in a way it does make you obnoxious. I’m sure we were, when the three of us were together. That’s partly what made it work.’
It’s now a year since The Grand Tour finished, and the 62-year-old doesn’t downplay just how much of his life that show and Top Gear consumed. ‘It was a job, but I did it for 20 years. It’s shocking really. Almost a third of my life was spent with those bell***s.’
Top Gear with Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May
He jests, but the question of how he sees the other two is interesting. Are they friends? Old work mates? ‘It’s funny because they were work mates, but they were significant in my life,’ he says. Not friends, then? ‘I think of it in terms of if we’d been at school at the same time we’d have been in rival gangs. There would have been a healthy respect for each other, but we wouldn’t have fitted in each other’s gangs. The three of us are quite different people.’
Do they catch up for a pint at all (it should be easy, given that both he and Clarkson own pubs)? ‘I saw Hammond three weeks ago and he seems happy enough. And I’m pleased Clarkson’s farm is doing well because he needed something else. I think we’re all reasonably content. I’m not going to mourn it.’
He hasn’t had time to mourn it because he’s had a busy year. When we catch up, he’s in the middle of a solo tour called Explorers – The Age Of Discovery, which tells the story of human exploration, and he seems surprised at how much he’s enjoyed going it alone with a live audience.
‘I’d never really done anything like that, not since the Top Gear live shows, and they were very different because there were three of us and stunt drivers and displays. This has just been me, walking up and down a stage, talking for two hours. But the live audience has been nice. You feel a bit of love. All of us in TV are slightly needy in that way. That’s why we’re in it.’
James May’s Shed Load Of Ideas, Tuesdays, 9pm, Quest and catch up on Discovery+
Last year he fronted James May And The Dull Men’s Club on Discovery+, which featured him doing things like cooking a casserole in his washing machine and cracking a nut with a sledgehammer. It’s back for a new series, but with a new name – James May’s Shed Load Of Ideas.
‘I was never mad keen on the “dull men” because I thought it was turning it into a “Ho ho, aren’t men boring” thing, when we weren’t being dull at all. We were being extremely clever and interesting and charming. Look, we are middle-aged and older men and between us we can do everything – and we have done. I don’t want to be all evangelical about it, but not only is there nothing wrong with it, it’s to be encouraged.’
His new series has introduced a segment in which people bring things to his pub, The Royal Oak in Swallowcliffe, Wiltshire, to be fixed – a little like The Repair Shop – and he loves the idea of expanding that to hobby evenings, ‘where people could come and drink beer and learn sewing or Spanish or woodwork’.
What he wouldn’t do is call it mental health provision. ‘We’ve become slightly obsessed with the idea that all men over the age of 50 are basket cases and need help. Blokes really just want to tinker with stuff and sometimes need mates to do it with. I think it’s stretching it a bit to think it’s a mental health issue. There are far more serious ones.’
Nor does he reckon it’s essential for men to talk to their mates about love, loss and the rest. Did he, Hammond and Clarkson do that? ‘Hammond and I had something called James And Richard’s Drunken Philosophical Drinking Society, where we’d talk for hours, but it would be about subjects like “How do you know a dog is a dog?” or “How high could society build before it fell over?” I can’t ever remember talking to them about love or loss. We mainly larked about.’
May with his partner Sarah Frater in 2015
He doesn’t have emotional chats with his closest friends, either. ‘My best friends are people I’ve known for decades, not all men, but I generally keep stuff to myself. I’m a firm believer that if someone says, “How are you?” the answer is, “Fine, thank you,” even if your leg is hanging off.’
Has he had the obligatory mid-life crisis? He says he’s ticked the boxes (‘I’ve got the Porsche, the sit-on lawnmower, the carbon fibre bicycle and the set of Japanese kitchen knives’) yet he doesn’t feel he has. ‘I don’t have kids. I’ve been living with the same woman for a long time but I didn’t get married young. I wonder if people who have mid-life crises just peak early then get seized by ennui. I’ve been a late developer. I spent most of my life in a fudgy daydream and only found things I was good at about 20 years ago. Mind you, I did the leather jacket and Porsche thing anyway as part of my work, so…’
James has been with Sarah for 25 years. She shuns the limelight that he (half) craves. ‘She has no desire to be famous. She hides from that, which I like, to be honest.’
They never married, and he can’t quite say why. ‘Maybe we’re too modern, too hippy. It’s never really been an issue.’ What about children? ‘I didn’t sit in my twenties and think, “I am going to have a life without any children.” It just didn’t happen. I have nephews and nieces. I’m the unsuitable uncle who teaches them how to fire an air rifle and make fish finger sandwiches and build Lego. But you’ve got to remember that in my mind I’m still only 12 myself, so I’m perfectly comfortable with this.’
James May’s Shed Load Of Ideas, Tuesdays, 9pm, Quest and catch up on Discovery+
