19/12/2013 The One Show

Hello and welcome to your Thursday before Christmas One Show, with Matt

Baker and Alex Jones. Separately, our guests have appeared in some of

the biggest shows and movies of recent years, from The Office, to

the Hobbit, Love Actually and Mr Selfridge. But this couple are about

to star together in a series with millions of fans on both sides of

the Atlantic. Any idea? Elementary, my dear Alex, from Sherlock, it is

Martin Freeman and Amanda Abbington. You have been a couple for about 13

years. Is it right that it started from a text message? It is, isn't

it? We met on a make up bus and got on very well and spent the rest of

the afternoon flirting. I presume it was at work, not just a random make

up bus. We were working and I came in and saw this lovely woman. And

then you saw me! We hit it off and it was very nice. You went home and

I did not have a chance to say goodbye, so I got in touch with the

second assistant director and I said, could I get her number? I sent

a text. You said, I had not finished flirting with you. Is that what it

said? Yes, so he said, come back to work and we can pick up where I left

off. I knocked on his trailer the next day and said hello. We checked

we were both single. You loved that. We have never had a real-life

couple. This is very exciting. You mean you two are not... If you

started with a flirting text like Martin, send a pic show and tell us

what you wrote. Keep it clean, and we will read some out later. Maybe

you could read them out. That would be lovely. Also tonight, like Holmes

and Watson, the One Show is going to help victims of what can only be

described as a heinous crime. For more information, over two Alex

Riley for the facts. I am here in Blackpool with Neville

and Maureen Hoyland, whose house has become a local Christmas attraction

because every year Neville covers it with Christmas lights. This is a

picture of what it looked like a couple of weeks ago. Last week,

disaster struck when thieves made off with every single one of them.

Neville, tell us how long you have been doing this, and why do you do

it? I have been doing it for the last ten years, for our grand

daughters. Also, we live close to a school, so schoolchildren are

passing during the evening. They stand outside and look at the lights

and get enjoyment from it. So do the neighbours, and so do we. Maureen,

talk us through the moment you realised they had been stolen. I

opened the blinds and looked out and I was totally shocked. Everything

was gone. I was devastated. I could not believe it. Terrible! The good

news is that we are in Blackpool and nobody does illuminate and is

better. We set a challenge to the head of Blackpool illuminations to

light up the house again in time for the end of the show. How are you

getting on? Still quite a lot to do. You have only got 20 minutes. Get

your skates on. I hope he does it. Join us later to find out if he gets

the house lit up. There is definitely a reindeer

involved. I am not holding out much hope for him. Hopeless. We will

catch up with them later. For that, when British Rail was privatised

nearly 20 is ago it was supposed to herald a new era of efficiency

fuelled by competition. But with one major line now running under public

ownership, very smoothly, why change it?

It has been 20 years since our railways were privatised. All of the

main routes are run by independent companies, all except this one, the

East Coast main line from Edinburgh to London, which runs through this

station in York. It has been in public hands for the last four

years. Previously, it was run privately by two companies, but both

lost the franchise when they failed to make it profitable. In 2009 it

was taken over by Department for Transport, trading as East Coast.

So, is Britain's only state-run railway any good? I am satisfied

with the service. It is cleaner than it used to be. The service was not

as good when it was National Express. For the last five years it

has been brilliant. East coast is selling more tickets than ever, and

with no shareholders to pay, no franchise targets to meet and a bit

of careful management, it has made over ?600 million profit for the

Treasury so far. It has also had some healthy competition from

specialist private operators linking both Sunderland and Hull to the

capital. But despite its success, the government has put the franchise

up for sale again, sparking protest and a petition, with over 23,000

signatures. The situation is so sensitive that East Coast have asked

us not to film on any of their trains. So here I am on the platform

in York waiting for my next interview. This is the chairman of

the Institute of directors and a regular passenger on the line, who

supports a return to private ownership, despite the disastrous

performance of the two previous franchise owners and the current

success of the state run operation. What do you say to those who say

this is an advert for nationalising the whole lot? I would say the

opposite because there is more private competition on this line

than any other line. It shows that competition proves you get at a

service, more efficient, by having competition, and that is something

we want more of. What guarantees are there that under future owners it

will not be a shambles? It comes down to the government making sure

that when they released the franchise, they do it under the

right terms. They have to make sure it is going to be effective for the

passenger and the business. So, do other travellers agree? We are not

allowed to bring cameras on the train, so I am recording on a mobile

phone. It is hard to assess the service on just one trip, so let's

find out what some regular passengers make of it. People want

the best service they can get, whoever is running it. As long as I

can get on the train and sit in the seat, I am quite happy. What do you

make of it going back into private hands? If profits are put before the

service, it could decline again. I think the service decreases. It is

not as punctual, more crowded. I think it is going to be problematic.

Ticket prices are going to be crazy. The Private user will not be able to

afford to go backwards and forwards to London. Most people seemed to

prefer leaving things as they are, but the latest passenger survey

revealed that passenger satisfaction on the route is no better than four

years ago when run privately. Even so, many passengers and observers

feel strongly it should stay in public hands, including a leading

transport commentator. Why is the government keen to put it in private

hands? It is functioning perfectly well, when other franchises, which

are more problematic, they are delaying rather than letting out.

The government does not like the idea of a successful public company.

It shows up the fact that we do not need privatisation. The Department

for Transport told us a strong private sector partner would deliver

a world-class railway for passengers and best value for the taxpayer.

Virgin Trains and several foreign companies are competing to buy the

rights for the line. The franchise is due to be awarded next October,

with the operators taking over in February 2015. A bit like Harry

Potter, the most famous passenger at King's Cross, you would have to be a

wizard to get your head round the nuts and bolts of this deal. But

speaking to many passengers, it seems clear that all they are that

about is getting from a to B as quickly as possible.

It takes a bit of getting your head round. ?600 million to the Treasury.

Why bother privatising this? Greenman wrote the government have

said, this was always an interim measure and they have not had to

invest in infrastructure. They say a private franchise will have two pay

a premium to the government and invest in the railway, which they

have not been doing so far. The short list of candidates will be

announced in October 2014 and we will know the winner by 2015. There

is a campaign group opposing it with 27,000 signatures now. Moving

swiftly on from trains to safety at the station. There is a new campaign

to stop people coming a cropper on the escalators. We have some footage

that will make you crease. Watch this.

Never wear high heels on the escalator. This last one, he has

luggage and should take the lift. He decides to wait. He is on his way.

As it gets steeper, you can imagine it rolling back. Nobody was hurt.

There is a serious side to this. Were you about to say that we should

not laugh! Three golden rules. Don't wear high heels. Get a lift if you

have luggage. And don't rush. Easier said than done when you are late.

Amanda, you had an incident. I got stuck on an escalator when I was

little. I can't really remember. I was really young. There was a

plastic thing where the escalator handle went up and I climbed up. But

my grandmother fell down the escalator at Angel when she was 30,

from the top, right down. Her spine clipped in and out again. As a

child, there is nothing more daunting than getting on and off the

escalator. It is like an initiation test. As we mentioned, Martin and

Amanda will soon be appearing together in the return of Sherlock.

For the millions of fans, there is a no spoilers glimpse right here of

series three. I do not care how you faked it. I

want to know why. The one person he thought did not matter to me was the

one person that mattered. I think I will surprise John. Perhaps jump out

of a cake. Baker Street is not there any more. He has got on with his

life. It has been two years. What life? I have been away.

It looks like a really good show. There is a lot to get your head

round. Watson now has a moustache. What has he been up to? He has been

up to this. Enter Mary. Don't say that! Just carry on. It has been two

years since his friend died. His life is not as exciting in terms of

life and death, he is not fighting crime with his mate. But he has

fallen in love. There is a new excitement. Can I say that? It is

not life and death. It is a very enjoyable thing. Rather like a

soldier coming back from a war zone, you miss the high and that

adrenaline, and it can leave you slightly adrift. I think John has

been probably quite sad until he met Mary. They met through work. She is

a nurse, and they fall in love. John is very happy when we join him. And

resigned to the fact that Sherlock is not coming back. Give us Mary's

background. I cannot. I can't really tell you a thing. Forget that, Park

that. That's a lovely picture. Yes, me with blonde hair. She is a

nurse. The end. The bromance between Watson and Sherlock is immense. How

will it work now there is a third person? Can you go into that? I

think when Sherlock returns, the reunification, that is what people

have been waiting for. That is what happens. If you found out your best

friend is actually alive, when you thought he was dead, that would be

quite a major shifting point in your life and you would not necessarily

be delighted with that person. Mary, in that case, for John, is a

stabilising third wheel. She likes him. She kind of negotiate them back

together. An interesting dynamic, being together in real life. Has

that been good, bad, hard, easy? It's really good, I have always

loved Amanda's acting, genuinely. I've always thought she's great.

It's true, I'm a brilliant actor. This is it now. What are the perks

of working together? We share a car. We share a flat. We see each other

as well, we haven't seen each other for a long time when Martin was

doing The Hobbit. We do most of the filming in Cardiff, not as far as

New Zealand. But still, you are not together. It did mean, literally, as

far as a perk, as a couple, it means you can wake together and see each

other. We can dissect it, talk about it and it is lovely. If we cannot

talk about the series, we can talk about the last series. It's fair to

say that it left us on a cliffhanger. Let's have a bit of a

recap. Sherlock summoned Moriarty to the roof of a hospital. Moriarty

told Sherlock all his friends would be killed if Sherlock refused to

jump. Moriarty shot himself, Sherlock jumped. The question is,

how did he survive the fall? We asked a couple of crime masters to

come up with their own theories. It has been one year, 339 days and

about 23 hours since Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock jumped to

certain death from that very rooftop. Only he didn't die, did he?

The cars we saw him at his own funeral. So how did he do it? --

because we saw him at his own funeral. I've enlisted the help of

people who know about this sort of thing to look at the evidence and

try to work out the mystery. Tim Kirby, not an easy man to full.

Ex-flying squad comedies dealt with some the most devious criminals.

Alison Joseph, a crime writer who understands a criminal mind and the

darker side of life. This is where it took place. Let's talk about some

theories. The most significant thing is that Sherlock was in control of

the situation. He chose the venue, he knew that pathology labs. I think

that is spot on. He got Moriarty and Watson where he wanted them. What do

you need? You. At that point, he behaves

completely out of character. We have never seen him go up to anyone and

say, I need you. Was he manipulating poor Molly? No, I think he means it.

I think he is such a cold fish that he does want to manipulate her.

Let's talk about Watson, why was he made to stand here? Stay exactly

where you are, don't move. Is important, from here, Watson could

see Sherlock jumped off the roof, but he would be unable to see the

landing. Watson comes over here... It's very important that Watson does

not get there straightaway. That cannot have been an accident? I

think we agree on that. Watson, a medically trained doctor, feels for

a pulse and there isn't one. You can put a rubber ball under your arm and

prevented from registering. We see a group of people swarming towards the

body, could they have got there that quickly? I don't think so, I think

they have to be associates. They have got to surround the body, this

spiriting away out of sight. How did he manage to fool the world and fake

his death? I think it is Moriarty that landed. As long as I am alive,

you can save your friends. Good luck with that. You think it was Moriarty

thrown off the roof, with a Sherlock mask on? What do you think? He jumps

off the roof, lands on the back of a lorry that breaks his fall. He rolls

over, he is found on the pavement, lots of fake blood. Then he is

whisked away. Hang on, I think I have cracked this.

We just have to say, please don't try that rubber ball trick at home,

it can be very dangerous if you are not Sherlock. Your theory was in

there. I'm not saying anything, I don't want to be responsible for

giving anything away. We will look at your faces, did we get anything

right? OK, I guess we will have to wait

until 9pm. It was the rubber ball! New Year's Day, for one, I cannot

wait. When you are filming this in central London, how on earth do you

keep it secret? With great difficulty. There are dummy runs,

red herrings. When we were filming around this very thing for the new

series, for the first episode of when we answer this question, this

riddle, there were hundreds of people watching. Hundreds and

hundreds of people watching, trying to get a glimpse, clues. See you

kind of do a real-life Sherlock? They did a dummy. They might have,

they might have not. It's difficult to keep under wraps. In an age of

high, fast technology, as soon as people get wind of anything they are

tweeting and texting. There were lots of different versions. Some

versions we have heard are not that necessarily far from the truth.

Talking of a second series... In January, Mr Shell -- Selfridge back.

You play head of accessories. Can you tell us about that? Five years

on, the start of the First World War. Miss Mardle, her brother dies,

he leaves her a big house and disposable income. But she comes

back to still work in accessories and her journey begins to try to

find love again. If you won the lottery, would you go back to where?

We are going to be catching up with Alex Riley in Blackpool as he tries

to help the couple whose Christmas lives were... -- Christmas lights

were swiped by thieves. Matt came in super early to put up these

beautiful life lights. We are about to switch them on. Are you ready?

Three, two, one! One of the joys of Christmas is

getting the fairy lights out of the attic to decorate the tree. But

these lights first made their appearance in a rather unusual

place. It was here, on this very stage, at the Savoy Theatre, on the

25th of November, 1882. The gaslit world of Victorian London, where

this vision caused a sensation and was part of an invention that change

the world. Three years before, Joseph Swan had first demonstrated

his revolutionary invention, the electric light bulb. The Royal

Society in London has an early example. It is an absolute original.

You can see that we have the filament, a carbon filament. Then

you have the glass envelope, the bulb part, and the electrode at each

end. Can we lighted up? I'm afraid not, it's rather special. Worth a

try! What have you got instead? This is something similar, a jam jar. We

have a pencil lead, really. It represents a version of a carbon

filament, the type used in the original lamp. If I connected to the

supply, let's see if it works. Look! That lights up really well.

It's not super bright, but it is a jam jar with a piece of pencil lead.

What do you expect? But it shows the principle of how it works. In 1881,

the Savoy Theatre became the first building in the world lit entirely

by the electric light bulb. It had been purpose-built to showcase the

comic operas of renowned musical partnership Gilbert and Sullivan. In

November of 1882, the Savoy Theatre was launching its latest Opera. The

producers wanted something spectacular with which to wow the

audience is. They came up with something illuminating. Who better

to turn to Dan the man who had provided the lights for the theatre?

They commissioned Joseph Swan to create special, miniature lights for

the humorous story of a group of the immortal fairies. They powdered

about that there would be self lighting fairies in this new piece.

-- put it about. It wasn't until the second act, when the Queen of the

fairies came on with these extraordinary illuminated stars in

their headdresses. Which was extraordinary. Electricity was new,

but portable electricity like that was phenomenal. What did the

audience think? They were completely delighted, they thought it was

marvellous. One critic claimed the lights were to write and obscured

the performers's faces, so they went back to Joseph Swan to ask for

smaller lights. They've managed very quickly indeed to reduce the size,

so two weeks later they all had what we now know as fairy lights running

through their hair. It's remarkable that Swan was able to make a

miniature version, just two years after inventing it. They have been

called fairy lights ever since after the fairies that wore them. At the

performance was not without its problems. Electricity was very

primitive them. There were stories of one or two fairies getting singed

bottoms from malfunctions of the battery pack. It's possible it was

put about by detractors, who were furious he was getting all of this

publicity. There were some that genuinely believed that electricity

was dangerous. Today, no Christmas would be complete without fairy

lights. They illuminate the high streets and homes.

Time to go back to Neville and Maureen in Blackpool, who had their

Christmas lights stolen. Have you managed to cast light on the

situation? I have, thank you. If you remember, this morning there were no

lights here whatsoever. A few hours later, after lots of hard work, it

is covered in lights. That is down to the generosity of local

businesses and Blackpool Council. This is the head of Blackpool

illuminations. How does it compare to your day job? We take just as

seriously as the day job. Hopefully they will be happy with what we have

done. To make it extra special, we have brought the genuine switch that

has been used for many years. By all of the celebrities? Jonathan Ross

last year. Tonight's celebrities are Neville and Maureen. Are you ready

for the countdown? Five, four, three, two, one. Lighted up.

What do you think about that? How does it compare to your usual

display? It's light fantastic, Christmas is back on! How do you

feel about having lights back on the house at last? Fantastic, I would

like to thank Blackpool Council, and all of the local businesses for

donating these beautiful decorations and lights. Wealth said -- well

said. We have actually brought you a new security camera, so they stayed

put. Christmas, brought back to Blackpool. Back to the studio. We

asked you to send in your flirty text messages, if that is how you

got together, as Martin and Amanda did. Lucy and James met at college.

Their question was, I'm great at English, you are great at maths,

together we can learn a lot. Jamie and Nicky, from Birmingham, I feel

like a kiddie in a sweet shop, who cannot touch. Just to clarify what

Tony said earlier, applicants for the East Coast line privatisation

will be short listed next month, the winning bidder will be confirmed in

October. Sarah and Johnny said, it is your driving test on Tuesday,

fancy a dress to sell it -- drink to celebrate? He replied, make it a

meal, and it's a date. Sherlock is on New Year's Day. The morrow is our

last show before Christmas. We will be joined by Jimmy Carr. See you

then. Good night!