James May addresses end of Grand Tour – ‘you have to end with dignity’ | UK | News

There’s just one word for why James May’s 22-year on-screen relationship with fellow TV presenters Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond has worked so well: “needle”. The veteran streamer feels the feud has always been crucial to the trio’s success on Top Gear and subsequently The Grand Tour.

“The relationship was partly about friendship, partly about competition; three is a crowd, there’s no doubt about it,” he says. “It’s true in reality, and it’s true on television. Three is a magic number in religion, but it’s a difficult number on television. So that needle made it work on Top Gear and The Grand Tour.”

The madcap drivers reunited in 2003, when Clarkson and Hammond replaced Jason Dawe in the second series of the Top Gear reboot. Their instant rapport, or the fact that we were “getting into each other’s mischief pretty bad” as James puts it, clearly contributed to the programme’s immense popularity around the world.

Not only has Top Gear been the BBC’s biggest export in years, but the presenters’ hilarious antics have turned The Grand Tour, their second show together, into a global ratings juggernaut for Prime Video. Unfortunately, audiences are still chanting “We want more!” Then that came to an end last year when all three decided to go for the top. “Oh no, not that tired old trio again!” in its place.

James stressed that it was the right time to end his on-screen relationship with his two friends. “We discussed it thoroughly, we were running out of places to go,” he says. “And there comes a time when you have to finish these things with dignity, instead of waiting for them to fall apart. The phrase we always used was ‘get it down safely rather than blow it off the cliff’.”

All three presenters were well aware that they were no longer the new kids on the block. “There’s no denying it,” says James, 62. “I try my best to be a modern person, but the way we look at it is becoming quite old-fashioned. “Even when we’re talking about cars, it’s a world that’s changing dramatically. “So I think we did the right thing and left the field open for someone else to reinvent the genre.”

James, whose partner is critic Sarah Frater, says the trio have no intention of reviving The Grand Tour. “You can never say never,” he adds with a caveat. “But I can’t foresee that right now. We all have other things to do and we are making some progress.”

“There’s actually a big part of me, almost all of me, that I’d rather leave it to rest, so it can be remembered fondly. When you reunite with old rock bands or bring back old TV shows as stage shows, there’s always a part of me that cringes a little and thinks, ‘No, just let it go.'”

The trio say their time together continued like this: “It was a brief spark. It was great, then it was gone. A bit like teenage love. You can’t get that back when you’re our age anyway!”

The fact that they no longer work together does not prevent the trio, who are good friends, from annoying each other mercilessly. For example, James enjoys making fun of Richard’s current profession by running a workshop in Herefordshire where he repairs classic cars. “I was in his workshop. They’re actually restoring my Triumph Stag there at the moment. Basically, Richard Hammond’s workshop has turned into a charity and I’m one of the donors. Jeremy bought a tractor there too and it looks like it’s still running. How about that?”

James’ sarcastic sense of humor is evident as he describes the gifts he receives from fans. “I get loads of bottles of beer, packets of candy and boxes of spam. Who needs anything else? People obviously think I’m starving and if they didn’t bring me this stuff, I’d disappear.”

“It’s cool, though. I haven’t had to buy any spam in the last five years. I’d be fine in a post-apocalyptic world. I even got a spam t-shirt from a fan. That shows they care!”

Since finishing The Grand Tour, James hasn’t been idle at all. In fact, it has never been this busy. He was supposed to do a trial run when he retired this year, but he ended up achieving more than ever before.

As well as running a gin business and a pub, with more to follow and touring the country with a live show, he is producing a new series for Quest called James May’s Shed Load of Ideas. On the show, he restores his friends’ favorite objects, such as an old train set and an antique wind-up toy boat. He also produces creative solutions to problems.

For example, the presenter tackles the cruelty of traffic wardens who mistakenly issue parking tickets with an innovative device he developed in his workshop in Wiltshire.

James is also dismayed that it will cost him £450 to buy a new chip-making machine for his pub. So he invents a new way to make chips by throwing potatoes from a ball into a stationary tennis racket. He assures us that this method will be cheap as chips.

Toy Stories, Man Lab, The Reassembler and Oh Cook! The presenter, who also pioneered how-to programs such as, says that he really enjoyed making this Heath Robinson-like mechanism. He’s never been this happy while tinkering in his workshop. But he wasn’t so sure about the final product. “As long as you don’t mind having some grass in your chips, it’s fine. I don’t really like it. But it’s not harmful. Cows eat grass. So, after all, we eat grass, too.”

James May’s book Shed Load of Ideas also highlights the importance of sheds as refuges from the stresses and strains of daily life and as crucibles of creativity.

According to James, who divides his time between homes in West London and Wiltshire, “All the best things in history came out of some sort of cottage, such as airplanes, bicycles and various computers. Jesus also came out of a cottage.”

“We’re not quite sure what a manger was. If you go to Bethlehem, it would look like a cave. It was probably a cave, but it could have been a wooden outhouse. It could have been a place of repose, but it still fits the broad definition of a shed, which is a private place where important things happen to people.”

The other business currently taking up much of James’ time is his pub, The Royal Oak, in Swallowcliffe, Wiltshire. It’s clear that this is a labor of love. “We’ve owned this place for five years. We never took any money from it, we just put money into it.”

“So running a pub should be seen as an act of charity or a service to the community. Pubs are like Victorian follies in people’s gardens. You should have them because you love them. For no other reason.”

James continues: “People often come up to me and say, ‘Oh, thank God you bought the pub and we still have it.’ It doesn’t have to be all about making a profit. It can be about the warm feeling you get. And I get a pretty warm feeling thinking: ‘Yes, I’ve got a bar and that’s what everyone secretly wants to do.’ I describe owning a bar as a really expensive tour. I still go to the bar, which I did before I owned it. It’s the same bar. Just for the privilege of continuing to go there.” “I have to pay a large amount of money.”

So what’s next for James? He has a perhaps surprising ambition to open an animal sanctuary on his Wiltshire property. “There are plenty of places that will give you donkeys and goats. There are plenty of places that will give you donkeys and goats for mating, but you have to keep them in pairs because they don’t like to be on their own.

“So you have to get two donkeys and two goats, and then before you know it, you also have a few dogs and a few cats, and suddenly your life becomes caring for animals.”

The presenter even considered making a documentary about the potential animal sanctuary. “The problem was, the show would run for a season or two. Then it would stop, and you’d be left with all these animals. You couldn’t take them to the junkyard like you could with cars. They’d last a lifetime, and that would be a huge burden.”

Before leaving, James turns to his favorite subject: men’s love of dick. “Most men who come and talk to me about James May’s Idea Scraps want to discuss things like my lathe or my power tools!

“I think the appeal of the show is that some guys are doing what they secretly want to do, which is some bullshit about the tools in the workshop.”

He says the documentary underscores the truth of Richard’s maxim that what all men need in life is “tools and booze.”

“When I think about my life, I’m one of those people who has a lot of hobbies,” he says. “I don’t do any of them very well, so I’m a bit underestimating myself. But I spend most of my time playing with tools and drinking my own gin. So probably 70% of my life is tools and booze.”

So James has to admit through gritted teeth: “Hammond is right. He talks a lot of philosophy every now and then.” Reminding that he is never too far away from the next joke, to the detriment of his former colleagues, James adds: “Hammond is a fool most of the time. But he very rarely comes up with something good!”

James May’s Shed Load Of Ideas is on Tuesdays at 21.00 on Quest