Top Gear star James May’s new TV show out this week

The 62-year-old starred alongside Oxfordshire farmer Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond in the hit BBC series as well as Prime Video’s The Grand Tour.

After spending 22 years together, the trio went their separate ways last year professionally after one last trip which featured Zimbabwe and Botswana.

James May now has a new show, James May’s Great Explorers, which starts on Channel 5 on Thursday (February 13) night.

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Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May in Top Gear.Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May in Top Gear. (Image: Ellis O’Brien / BBC / PA Wire)

He was recently asked if there are similarities between he, Mr Clarkson and Mr Hammond with the three explorers, Christopher Columbus, Sir Walter Raleigh and Captain James Cook.

“To be honest, no,” said Mr May.

“I think that would be bigging ourselves up far too much.

“We never went anywhere unexplored as far as I know. We were basically on elaborate holidays by comparison.

“The risks that people took setting off, especially in the 15th and 16th Century, not knowing really what they were going to find, being completely out of communication within a few hours of leaving. It was so risky.

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“We do a bit in episode one about Columbus going off to pray the night before they set off on the first voyage.

“Obviously, life was a lot harder then so the things that the sailors were leaving behind were not centrally heated homes and nice pubs and so on.

“But even so the chances of surviving a sea voyage were not that great and the conditions were awful even by the standards of the time.”

The first episode will be broadcast on Thursday at 9pm.

 

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