The series explores traditional skills that are being lost by the modern man, and shows how to stop them from being lost forever. Each episode has a variety of themed tasks, including construction, seduction, destruction and more. If science, geometry, maths, logic and explosives can be used in these tasks, so much the better. Tasks include sending a dead pet's ashes into space using a homemade
hydrogen balloon, creating one's own smelting furnace, constructing a
pool table, felling a tree using explosives, escaping from
Dartmoor prison whilst avoiding detection from expert trackers and making a magnetic ceiling panel to throw your keys at so you don't lose them. The first series also had a celebrity man task, where a celebrity attempted to beat a personal best at a certain 'man task', such as changing a
tyre; however, this aspect was not continued into series two. The theme tune was written by May himself and is often played live over the end credits by a variety of different performers, including barber shop quartet, bagpipes and more. == Series overview ==