Top Gear presenter James May has ruled out returning to the BBC show without Jeremy Clarkson, saying it would be “lame” to do it with a “surrogate Jeremy”.
May said the idea that he would return alongside fellow co-host Richard Hammond with a new presenter in place of Clarkson, who was axed from the show after a fracas with a producer, was a “non-starter”.
But May said he wanted to continue to work for the BBC and did not rule out all three presenters one day returning to the show.
“Me and Hammond with a surrogate Jeremy is a non-starter, it just wouldn’t work. That would be lame, or ‘awks’ as young people say,” May told MediaGuardian.
“It has to be the three of us. You can’t just put a surrogate Jeremy in and expect it to carry on. It would be forced. I don’t believe they would be stupid enough to try that.
“It doesn’t mean I won’t go back, we may all go back in the future. It might just be we have a break from it. I don’t know.”
May’s reluctance to return without his former colleague increases the possibility that the motoring show will return next year with an all-new presenting lineup. It is understood there are currently no Top Gear talks ongoing with May or Hammond, after their contracts expired last month.
May said: “It would be a bloody tough call to do Top Gear without Jeremy, that would be a bit of a daft idea.
“I don’t think you could carry on with two people and put someone in as the new Jeremy because they are not going to be the new Jeremy. That would be short sighted and I don’t think it would work. Virtually impossible.”
May said it was still possible that Clarkson could return to Top Gear despite the fallout from his unprovoked attack on Oisin Tymon in March which left the producer seeking hospital treatment.
BBC director general Tony Hall said a line had been crossed and Clarkson, a frequent source of controversy in the past, had failed to maintain standards of decency and respect at work.
“In the future when all this has blown over there might be an opportunity for three of us to get back together on the BBC to do Top Gear or a car show of some sort,” said May.
“The BBC haven’t completely closed the door on Jeremy’s return. They’ve not banned him or fired him, only just not renewed his contract for the moment. It’s a subtle difference but an important one.”
May said he saw it as a “light kicking … not excluding him from the club”.
Clarkson wrote much of Top Gear, as well as co-presenting it, acting as a virtual executive producer on the show which he fronted alongside Hammond and May since 2003.
May said there was “nothing to rule out” reuniting with Clarkson and Hammond for a motoring show on a rival broadcaster.
Clarkson has been linked to a move to big-spending US on-demand service Netflix, home to Kevin Spacey’s House of Cards, which recently signed the producers behind the BBC’s Blue Planet and Planet Earth to make a new natural history epic, Our Planet, in 2019.
But May said one or more of the presenters might have a non-compete clause which might hamper a switch in the short term.
The presenter will return to BBC2 with a second three-part series of James May’s Cars of the People and has one or two other projects in the pipeline. His other BBC2 credits include James May’s Toy Stories, Man Lab, and Things You Need To Know.
He said he would be happy to return to film new links and studio footage for the three episodes of Top Gear which were pulled from the schedule following Clarkson’s suspension and subsequent axing from the show.
Three unseen films have been shot featuring Clarkson, Hammond and May together, plus a handful of films with only one presenter adding up to between 90 minutes and two hours of material.
But May said he had not yet been invited back to complete the re-edited programmes, which BBC2 controller Kim Shillinglaw said she hoped would air on the channel by the summer, and “definitely” this year.
May said: “The BBC still want me to make some documentaries for them, including about cars. I’m not out of making TV programmes about cars and motoring and car history.”
With no Top Gear negotiations ongoing, May said he was rather enjoying having time off. “It may just be I don’t do anything,” he added.
Shillinglaw said at a BBC2 programme launch on Tuesday that there was nothing to stop Clarkson returning to the BBC.
She confirmed Top Gear would return next year and said she would look at female presenters to front the new-look show, having been credited with putting more women on screen in her time in charge of the BBC’s science and natural history output.
“Jeremy will be back on the BBC,” said Shillinglaw. “It is serious and unfortunate what happened but there is no ban on Jeremy being on the BBC. It’s a big deal what happened and Jeremy, as any human being would, needs some time out.”
Top Gear is one of the BBC’s most valuable show. Watched by more than 6 million viewers on BBC2, it is seen in more than 200 countries around the world and generates around £50m a year for the corporation’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide.
