Celebrity chef James Martin is getting out of the kitchen and heading out on the road for a live show that is unlike anything he has ever done before.

Having spent more than 25 years working in top kitchens and marking his 20th on the television in 2016, James has decided to go on tour with James Martin: Plates, Mates and Automobiles.

Tackling more than just great food, the show encompasses everything James is passionate about.

He told us: “We have put together this action-packed fun show: food meets cars meets mates.

“There’s a bit of everything. It will surprise a lot of people. It’s not a cooking demo. There is food in it, of course, but there is a bit of something for everybody. I wanted it to be a great night out.”

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James, 43, said he was first approached to do a live tour 15 years ago and has always said no to the idea.

He said: “Then I spent the last five years watching everyone else do them – the Hairy Bikers have done it, Paul Hollywood and Gino (D’Acampo).”

For his own show, James was keen to get the right team behind him and partnered up with Live Nation, who have organised 145,000 events in 33 countries, seen by 455 million fans.

From there, he embraced the blank slate he was faced with when putting the show together.

He said: “We have come up with something you are never going to have seen before. You certainly are never going to have seen this on television. I have got 50 of my mates taking part.

“Everybody from current and ex F1 drivers to the greatest chefs in the world in Mary Berry. They are all taking part in the end bit.

“My mates have been very receptive to it and they have been fantastic. I think I owe a lot of favours after this, put it that way.”

It is well-known that James is a proud Yorkshireman but as a young chef he worked in some of the capital’s top restaurants. He even had a spell at Marco Pierre White’s two-Michelin starred Harvey’s (now Chez Bruce) in Wandsworth, where Gordon Ramsey cut his teeth.

James said: “I spent most of my time wandering around London thinking ‘what the hell am I doing here? I’m from a farmhouse in north Yorkshire’.

“It is an amazing place, a fascinating place. There were only five restaurants where you had to work as a chef if you wanted to be mega or train with mega chefs, and in Wandsworth there was Harvey’s.

“There wasn’t anywhere else. Gordon Ramsey was still at Harvey’s then.

“Now it has morphed into this massive food capital we have got now. It has been a massive transformation.”

Not long after he left Wandsworth, James opened his first restaurant down in Hampshire, aged just 22.

A few months later he made his first television appearance and began a professional life juggling the restaurant business and TV that continues 20 years on.

“I do remember my first appearance. It was on show called Sky One to Three, which was a live show in the afternoon. I cooked for Kylie Minogue on the first day and the BeeGees on the second.

“It was surreal. I had a bandana on.”

The show may have been forgotten by history by James still remembers the nerves.

He said: “I was proper bricking it. I’m bricking it every time. I’m bricking it every Saturday as well but I just don’t show it any more.

“I went to the Rugby World Cup and you’re in Twickenham and they go ’80,000 people’ and you look round and go ‘s**t, that’s a lot of people’.

“Then I get the viewing figures for Saturday Kitchen and they say 3.2 million. It puts it in perspective. It is surreal.”

Saturday Kitchen, which regularly attracts such massive figures with its combination of food and chat, has been a cornerstone of James’ success which also includes several television series and 16 cook books.

He said: “Back then I was little-known. I used to do Ready Steady Cook a little bit but it was my first real shot. I am surprised after 20 years that even now the shows are all number one.”

The key to his success and longevity, James said, is staying true to himself and not courting fame.

He said: “I don’t follow trends, I don’t follow fashion stuff. All this sugar, salt thing – I don’t have an opinion on it. People can make their own choices. I just carry on and cook the food I like to cook and hopefully make it interesting for people to do at home.”

James Martin: Plates, Mates and Automobiles is at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls on March 17. Go to Fairfield.co.uk

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