The Medium is Not Enough

In the UK: Tuesdays, 8pm, BBC2

You couldn’t have predicted that the first series of Oz and James’s Big Wine Adventure was going to be a success. James May is very much the superfluous member of the Top Gear team. Sure, it wouldn’t be the same without him, but sometimes it’s barely noticeable that he’s there, except when Clarkson and Hamster need someone to put down. Stick him by himself and it’s a disaster, since it exposes his worst and most boring tendencies.

Oz Clarke is, of course, a very famous wine taster. But he used to get overshadowed by the “mad as a box of frogs” Jilly Goolden on Food and Drink something chronic, since he was relatively normal, despite being a former actor who’d appeared in Superman of all things.

However, stick them together on a wine tour of France in an old Jaguar, and it turns out you have TV gold. Since cars are notably more masculine and rugged than wine-tasting, May suddenly became the alpha male – even after talking about classical music and harpsichord playing, his ability to cut through the pretension of Oz Clarke made him several hundred times more manly and interesting than he’d ever been previously.

And since it was a wine show, Oz Clarke’s expertise allowed him to maintain an equal footing with May; May’s occasional return to car bore mode also allowed Clarke to gain the upper hand on occasion and to look down on May’s unsophistication. By the end of it, a firm friendship and a new double act emerged.

Now comes a second series of the show. This time, Clarke and May are going on a tour of California in a majestic RV, with Clarke once again trying to instil in May a knowledge and love of wine that doesn’t come easily to the petrolhead. While it doesn’t quite have the charm of the first series, it’s still an entertaining show that anyone can appreciate.

Continue reading “Review: Oz and James’s Big Wine Adventure 2.1”