James May says he'd love feedback from Gordon Ramsay about new cooking show

"They may not even notice but I would quite welcome it," he told RadioTimes.com. "I'd be very interested to see, especially Gordon Ramsay – I like Gordon a lot – I would be pretty interested to see what they say."

The series is also accompanied by a new cookery book, but May says he doesn't think any celebrity chefs will be quaking in their boots at the prospect of some new competition.

"I don't think they're going to feel threatened by it let's be honest," he said. "I don't think Nigella Lawson is going to think 'Oh no! James May's done a cooking book, what am I going to do!'

"That's just not going to happen, I think I'm going to get a sort of collective cooking community pat on the head and a well done for trying."

The series sees May cook everything from stir-fries to Victoria Sponges, with some help along the way from home economist Nikki Morgan, which he described as like "having a personal seminar or masterclass".

And he says that he hopes the show will encourage viewers to give cooking a go, even if they don't consider it their forte.

" I wanted to demonstrate that if you know the basic techniques about how to fry onions and how to sauté potatoes you can then start to apply that to a lot of other things," he said.

"So in a sense I was demonstrating, in all honesty, I don't really know what I'm doing beyond a few basic skills but that will be enough, and I will be able to cook quite a variety of stuff.

"So for all those other people who can't be bothered or are too scared to try or imagine that it's incredibly difficult, hopefully, this will be a little spur to having a go."

James May: Oh Cook arrives on Amazon Prime Video on Friday 13th November. While you’re waiting, pre-order Oh Cook: 60 recipes that any idiot can make on Amazon, visit our TV Guide to see what’s on tonight, or check out our guide to new TV shows 2020 to find out what’s airing this autumn and beyond.