James May’s Great Explorers; Yellowjackets

“No-one is pretending the show is terribly academic, but it’s the most enjoyable history programme I’ve watched in ages. It’s Horrible Histories with a Top Gear voiceover, a bit of science and some comical cookery demonstrations thrown in, funny but educational if you’re coming to this with only the vaguest knowledge of Columbus.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“May, sporting a Billy Connollyesque shock of grey hair, is a dry, wry, solid host who tackled a big theme in a small (and fairly low-budget) way. This sciencey approach was a good, educational way of freshening up history.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“May combines the easy-going, self-deprecating chunter he has perfected over decades on camera with an evident enthusiasm for facts and knowledge. He clearly believes that a civilised society needs to understand its past, and that a teacher’s job is to make the information memorable and fun, but also detailed and accurate.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Yellowjackets returns having undergone a necessary reset. Based on the four episodes available in advance, in taking a torch to things, it appears to have rediscovered that initial anarchic energy. It is funny and zingy, and occasionally scary, too.”
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian

“In the Canadian Rockies, where the teenagers in Yellowjackets remain stranded after a plane crash, winter has turned to spring. They’re desperate for rescue, but not half as desperate as viewers will be as this show drags through its third series. Can’t they get on with it? Each episode is split 50:50 between then and now, and while the wilderness stuff can be gripping, the present-day manages to be tedious and outlandish at the same time.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph