Richard Hammond Interview

18 November 2009

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Richard Hammond might be best-known for  co-hosting car programme Top Gear alongside Jeremy Clarkson and James May, but his interest in science has lead to him fronting shows such as Brainiac: Science Abuse on Sky1 and Richard Hammond's Blast Lab on CBBC.  As he prepares to unleash his DVD edition of Blast Lab, I caught up with the star for a chat.

Okay, so Richard, how are you?

Very, very well thank you, very well indeed how are you?

I’m freezing Richard! Autumn is my favourite too, but I’m not liking it at the moment.

It’s my favourite too, I love the crispness of it all.

Yes! I’m with you on that, anyway tell me about this new DVD, Richard Hammond’s Blast Lab Blow-Ups!

Well it’s an intellectual feast… it’s the box set of my TV science show that I make which is set in my underground, top secret laboratory and the DVD is an extension of that rally, we wanted to show people what really goes on in my lab and with my lab rats.

Oh Richard, I feel sorry for the little lab rats…

Don’t do that! You mustn’t! they tear around and do stuff and we also do things like the lab academy, and we have an award ceremony and we do things on a bigger and slightly more ridiculous scale than in the programme, which has all been quite fun.

Is sounds pretty crazy, I always wanted to go on a kids show when I was little… I was pretty rubbish at science though so I’d probably have been rubbish at this…

Well, I sort of excluded myself from science, I was like a lot of kids… good at art and English so then I thought science wasn’t for me. You don’t need to want to grow up and be a scientist, it’s about understanding how and why things do what they do and how the world works.

The show gives children and adults permission to access that… even the crew have learnt things! The number of times a camera operator has looked at me as if to say “I didn’t know that” is amazing!

Aww, you’re like our favourite teacher! So, did you attempt any of the tasks yourself? (how did you do?)

Erm, not in the likelihood of me being hurt or uncomfortable… I have lab rats for that kind of things. I like to stand back and watch… we look back on the best bits on the DVD too, it’s great!

When I was in school I couldn’t even pick up the hydrochloric acid, I was far too scared.

Well you want to be careful of those things, you need to find some lab rats to do that kind of stuff for you - hat’s the joy of having an underground labority, you can get lab rats to do it for you and I can stand behind a protective screen.

It’s quite a fun way for children to learn more about science, is that why you decide to get involved, because you’re CV must be full to bursting point now?

Well yes it is, but there’s a common element through it which is that the shows are honest to what they’re supposed to be. I really wanted to make a science show for kids which they could enjoy and get involved.. If they can learn something by getting something blown up or someone covered in custard then they love that! Myself and the team are all so proud of it.

It is pretty awesome, I know I would have love to have been involved in something like that when I was a kid, science lessons were so dull!

Well all it does is make a few children feel like they have permission to be interested in the subject - they might want to be a footballer or a famous chef - but nevertheless science has an impact on the world around us, so we should take an interest.