The second episode of James May’s Man Lab has just started and there’s something both endearing and disturbing about the Maysian version of the Vitruvian Man, showing May in his y-fronts with the various subjects of his series arranged around him, his arm swinging to whichever is going to be featured in the next segment. It’s all a bit too ..evocative… of a certain right hand action.
James May’s Man Lab is a collection of supposedly blokish pursuits, in an attempt to rehabilitate modern man by teaching him the abilities of their ancestors. In other words, it’s James and his pals in a shed putting in kitchen fittings, fiddling with cars, creating their own pub, dismantling World War II bombs and such like. Harmless fun, fitting May’s fuddy duddy, weird but charming uncle image.
The politics of it are strange though. Not so much the inherent sort of “No Gurls Allowed” sexism in the series, but the idea that watching a tv programme featuring some blokings doing blokish stuff entertainingly crappy makes you a better man. James agitates (well, politely suggests rather) for men to become more skilled, to do more manly stuff instead of just idly consuming tv and computer games by erm, getting them to watch a television series…