It's occasionally charming - and mostly slightly dismal... Still, you get the sense that May will banter on, a boat against the current, borne back ceaselessly into past glories.
I haven't enjoyed a cooking show this much since spending a late 1980s summer as a teenager watching old episodes of Julia Child mastering the art of French cuisine.
Probably, James May isn't as funny as he thinks he is, but he does have natural warmth and a sense of mischief, and it's all carried along nicely by that.
The unendearing May does provide plenty of tasty little tidbits of food history with which they can regale people when they give up and go down to the take-away. One for the fans.
