Richard Hammond talks about living with that 288mph crash and is still ready to race a steam train from Darlington. Andy Welch reports.

RICHARD Hammond has a reputation for staying relentlessly chirpy… hardly surprising having survived a 288mph car crash at Elvington Airfield, near York, in 2006. This time Hammond is happy because he’s talking about Blast Lab, the children’s science show he presents for the BBC. And if you think he seems enthusiastic about cars on Top Gear, that’s nothing compared to his effervescent descriptions of Blast Lab, which returns for its second series on Saturday.

“It has to be a lot of fun to watch, which is actually easy on a science programme because science is so much fun,” says Hammond. “By making it fun to watch, it’s incidentally a lot of fun to make.”

Set in a secret laboratory under his makebelieve mansion, Hammond assumes the role of an eccentric scientist for Blast Lab.

With the help of his adult “Lab Rats”, Ninja Nan – the lab’s security officer – and his car Oliver, a trusty Opel Kadett he bought while travelling across Africa with Top Gear, Hammond does lots of experiments.

The lab is packed with primary schoolage children competing in a series of science-based challenges to win a stack of prizes at the end.

Along the way, things are crushed, blown up, doused in water and set on fire. But it’s all in the name of education, says Hammond.

He says: “You’re never going to impress children by just messing about, because you’re never going to able to mess about on a scale that’s big and daft enough for them on its own.

“What children tend to look for is the reason and justification behind the messing about, and if it’s to explain one of Newton’s laws, where you suddenly decide you have to make rocket-propelled balloons to fire over tanks of gunge, then there’s a reason and the kids throw themselves into it so wholeheartedly you wouldn’t believe it.”

But it’s not just the kids who’ve been learning. “When we were filming, I’d be with one of the cameramen stood at the back of the studio watching experiments unfold, and he’d say out of the corner of his mouth, ‘I didn’t know that’ and I’d say, ‘Neither did I.’.

“We wanted to make a show children wanted to watch, as well as being a show parents could watch. I was a big fan of How when I was growing up. I’m not saying we’re going to become the new How, that’s quite an ambition, but with what we’re setting out to do and the way we’re doing it, we’ve got the best chance of doing that.”

A couple of years ago, Hammond set up his own production company, Hamster’s Wheel, and Blast Lab was one of its first creations.

As a result, he’s been involved in the series from the start – and months of meetings with hard-nosed children’s TV executives, not to mention being dad to two girls aged eight and five, has helped him work out what his audience wants.

Conversation comes around to Hammond’s accident while filming a stunt for Top Gear when he lost control of a jetpowered car (the Vampire).

Despite suffering a serious brain injury, he once said that the only change he had suffered was that he now likes celery. But the truth was a different matter.

“It was two-and-a-half years ago, so I’m sure I’m up and running, but I’m very conscious never to dismissively brush it off as nothing, because it was something.

“I’m sure it’s not talked about by other people, and I wouldn’t expect it to be, but it’s talked about in my life, most definitely, and it’ll be with me always.”

Hammond now works with a children’s trust in Surrey which helps people who have suffered similar brain injuries.

“The brain isn’t necessarily like a leg that can heal, it’s a lot more complicated. Some days you’ll be fine, and other days you won’t, and that might be absolutely nothing to do with your accident. If I get stressed or tired or upset now, part of me will wonder if it’s related to the accident, and it almost certainly isn’t, but the fact that I thought it might be means that it is, actually.

“I’ve learned a lot, so in that case it’s been beneficial – although I would never recommend it as therapy.”

■ Blast Lab, BBC2, Saturday, 8.30am. Top Gear returns to BBC2 on Sunday at 9pm and features the Darlington-built steampowered Tornado in the hands of Jeremy Clarkson racing from Edinburgh to London against Hammond’s motorbike and James May’s Jaguar.