James May Admits “It’s Harder” Doing Solo Shows Compared To The Grand Tour Alongside Clarkson And Hammond
James May thrives alongside his fellow Grand Tour and ex-Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond. But as he continues his new solo travel show, James May: Our Man In Italy, he’s realised that it’s a lot “harder” making shows by himself.
The Grand Tour presenter has been presenting alongside Clarkson and Hammond since 2003 on Top Gear and more recently The Grand Tour. And while he’s had solo shows since this, the Our Man In travel series is a huge undertaking for the presenter.
“We’ve all done a lot of solo things and we’re all doing solo things at the moment,” he explained to Radio Times.
“I like doing things by myself, but also in some ways it’s harder because you have to provide everything – you haven’t got the others to sort of bounce off of or fill up the programme.”
May continued, adding that there are still pros and cons to both types of show:
“I like having both because I can often do something by myself and then I can go and knock about stuff with the other two, and we can wind each other up and then all of us think, ‘Oh gosh, I’m going to go off and do something myself.'”
When you’re the sole presenter on a show, it must be difficult to take the stress of whether it will be a success or not when it’s finally released to fans. May admits that he still gets nervous before his shows are aired, admitting that he expects to be confronted by someone who thinks he’s just “mucking about”.
“This is the one where somebody goes, ‘Hang on a minute, this bloke’s just mucking about on the holiday’ or something like that,” he said.
