The problem with doing the same job for 10 years, especially on TV, is that it can be hard for people to imagine you doing anything else. So when James Martin jumped ship from Saturday Kitchen last year – after a decade refereeing breakneck omelette challenges and assiduously topping everyone’s glass up – it was unclear what his next move might be.
Could he vault from daytime to primetime, fronting some fashionably far-flung cookery travelogue? Or would he pursue something more suited to his unique presenting skillset – an inclusive, inquisitive, fourth-wall-breaking style refined over hundreds of hours of rambunctious live TV?
It took a while, but we finally have an answer. After sporadically filling in on This Morning and doing a brace of festive specials on the Food Network, the affable Yorkshireman has launched his big TV comeback this week. James Martin’s French Adventure might be a daytime ITV show – not the most prestigious slot – but it feels, from top to bottom, like a show custom-built to get the very best out of him.
Pleasingly, it is also a James Martin vehicle in which James Martin literally drives a vehicle. And despite his oft-professed love of performance cars (a gearhead obsession that meant he was linked to Top Gear when the BBC was looking to fill the sudden Clarkson/Hammond/May-shaped presenting sinkhole), it’s a clapped-out Citroen with dinged fenders and a frayed canvas roof.
None of this matters to Martin, who pootles down country roads in his boneshaker with an enormous grin, because this particular Citroen 2CV was previously owned by his hero Keith Floyd – the patron saint of boozy al fresco cookery demonstrations. In fact, the entire premise of Martin’s sunny sojourn is to recreate one of Floyd’s classic series on French cuisine. Piloting this storied 2CV and rocking a white Panama hat all feels like part of a ritual to reincarnate Floyd’s mercurial spirit.
The other key ingredient for channelling Floyd, of course, is wine: gallons of the stuff. Martin does not shirk from the task. He glugs. He sips. He quaffs. He winks, then glugs again. It makes The Wine Show – ITV’s previous high watermark of onscreen plonk consumption, co-starring Matthew Rhys as a cava-swilling Captain Caveman – look like Dry January.
And it works. While cooking up a heart-stoppingly rich bordelaise sauce in the garden of a handsome Saint-Emilion chateau, Martin – deliberately or not – began bossing around his cameraman, just as Floyd used to banter with poor, unseen Clive. “Get in there, Rob!” exclaimed Martin, brandishing a pan crammed with mouthwatering steaks.
If the galloping ghost of Floyd loomed large, the opening episode also front-loaded a more autobiographical journey for Martin, a sort of Who Do You Think You Loire? Annual family holidays to Saint-Emilion awakened his passion for food, and as a teen in the 1980s, Martin learned his trade in the kitchens of various nearby chateaux. As well as absent-mindedly snacking on local macarons, his return to the region was clearly like biting into one of Proust’s madeleines.
He revisited the Hostellerie de Plaisance, the place where he had the fundamentals of French cooking drilled into him while dodging the odd flying rolling pin. Despite Martin’s default mode of bearish joshing, these were surprisingly emotional scenes. At one point, he sank to his knees before a timeworn stovetop, reviving a powerful sense memory of the spoddy kid who could barely see over the counter.
The cumulative result is surprisingly deluxe daytime TV, with gorgeous locations, an ambitious roadmap – this first series is comprised of 20 daily episodes, each digging deep into regional dishes and specialities – jaunty French cafe music and periodical reminders that Martin definitely does not get behind the wheel of his beloved Citroen after having a glass or three of ‘47 Cheval. Sit back, watch and enjoy. Just don’t try to match Martin drink for drink.
James Martin’s French Adventure continues weekdays, ITV, 3pm.
