25/02/2014 The One Show

hello and welcome to the One Show with Matt Baker. And yes, welcome

back to Alex, fresh from the Philippines, lovely to have you

back. It is likely to be back. I was therefore Sport Relief, looking at

the devastating... It has been a long day. Devastating type who that

swept through in last November. --typhoon. Next week you will have

the chance to help. Because thanks to you, we are a show that likes to

get things done and we have proof tonight, the dramatic updates on two

stories. One, a group of residents whose homes and futures were

blighted through no fault of their own. The other is a remarkable story

of a nun whose life might have been saved after a doctor who happen to

be watching her on the show realised something was wrong. It is an

incredible story. And joining us is a man who I am sure we'll have a lot

to say on those subjects and any subject, in fact, it is Simon

Callow! Nice to see you again. Thank you, lovely to be here on your new

premises. Yes, your first time here. You have a brand-new one-man

Shakespeare play which we will talk about later, but in her acceptance

speech, Dame Helen Mirren quoted from the Tempest, she said, in my

best Helen Mirren, "We are such stuff as dreams are made on."

Doesn't sound anything like her. It was good. Thank you. Which

Shakespeare line would sum up your life? I don't know if it sums up my

life but I would like people to talk about what Hamlet says about

Yorick, a man of infinite jest and excellent fancy. It would look good

on your tomb. And you are in the thespian vibe at the moment, you are

going between rehearsals. Later on, we are showing a film about the

history of men's underwear, so... I'm something of an authority. Are

you a boxer or a briefs man, and do you have lucky pants? I am a boxer

man but I have not located my lucky pants. I am hoping some kind of you

will be sending some informative. When you are in character, do you

wear characterful underwear as well? On the whole, I wear my own,

but sometimes you have to wear period underwear. In Shakespeare In

Love, I wore period underwear. How was that? Had someone else worn it

before you? They were freshly made and freshly laundered! On lucky

pants? If you have a pair stored away in a drawer, keep it clean and

send us a picture. Yes, please keep it clean and we do not want you

wearing your pants. Just holding them up tastefully. Spoilsport. Send

your pictures to [email protected] and we will

show the luckiest briefly later. Very good. Here we go, this is a

classic case of what happens next. Cast your minds back over three

years to an edition of the One Show when, I remember, as my first ever,

but for one contributor, it was a lot more important than that.

It is an enclosed content which doesn't normally mix with the

outside world. -- con vent. That was 2010, it was Alex's first

show, would be gold work was on the sofa and three of the sisters from

this convent had agreed to speak to us. One of the nuns we spoke to was

Sister Aelred. When you first -- we first came here come you didn't plan

to be interviewed. It wasn't on the cards at all. One of the people who

had come with you as if they could interview me as well and I said,

OK, as long as it is with the other two. The video greeting came on with

the three nuns and with Sister Aelred in a centre. I said to my

wife, I think the middle none is speaking as though her tongue was

too large for her mouth -- the middle nun. I noticed also that she

had thickening of the soft tissues of the face, the lips, the nose, the

forehead, all of which are fairly classical external signs of this

condition. Two days after the One Show had gone out, the producers

said they had been contacted by a doctor who says he is quite sure

that the middle of the three sisters has got a rare condition called

acrolegame. Speak quite how did you feel? I thought I should be sensible

and I e-mailed him and said I was the person, and would he get back to

me? He replied immediately with a very good email explaining what it

was. It is nearly always due to an overgrowth on the pituitary gland,

and this is a benign tumour of the pituitary which is producing too

much growth hormones, so the body is seeing an access growth hormone. So

it happens very, very slowly and often happens during the second half

of life and it is just very difficult for the individuals

themselves to up. In every 1 million of the population, there will

probably be three or four cases diagnosed every year, so it really

is very rare. As things progress, I was referred to a wonderful surgeon

in Southampton, and he saw the tumour and he said it was a big one,

and I said I felt well, I don't feel I need the surgery and he said that

if I don't have it, it will undoubtedly shorten your life, so I

said I would have it. I didn't want to die before I have two. When it

came to the celebration for my 50th anniversary, I said to the

community, wouldn't it be lovely to invite the doctor and his wife? When

I met Sister Aelred for the first time, I thought she looked

terrific, healthier and rather younger, I would say, and she just

looked very, very well. It seems to be extraordinary that a busy

consultant, whose speciality was endocrinology, should have been

watching the One Show when he came home from work. And should have

noticed and taken the trouble to do something about it. That still

amazes me. Is this all just a coincidence? I don't think there is

any such thing. What a story, and best wishes to Sister Aelred for

continued good health. I remember her well. Speak Roddy just goes to

show commune of a know who is watching and what will happen. So,

Simon, you are back on the stage in Being Shakespeare, a one-man play

but not written by the Bard himself. So can you give us a flavour of what

the play is about? It is about Shakespeare, obviously. It is an

attempt to get inside this man about whom we know so little. So it is his

life? It is a humorous life -- human life. His most famous quote is

perhaps" all the world is a stage..." And the person who speaks

that takes you through the seven ages of man and so we take you

through that and the first age is a baby. What was it like to be an

Elizabethan baby? If all of them were like this, Shakespeare must

have been like that and what are in the play is about the treatment of

babies? Lots. So bit by bit, like an echo chamber, you start to get an

impression of what it might have been like. Is it in the

Shakespearean verse? Not at all. It is me probing this question of what

the journey of William Shakespeare might have been. And of course, the

journey of William Shakespeare is the journey of all others, because

he is the one at all writers that we know best understood what it is to

be the human being. I was reading, one of the first book she connected

with were Shakespeare, and this year is the 450th anniversary of the

Bard's birth, and the RSC are saying children as young as five years old

should be exposed to his work. Is that too young? It is too young to

expose people to the actual texts, because they are difficult,

difficult for adults, even, but the stories are fantastic and I

passionately believe they should be exposed to the stories and the great

fact is that our great national genius, probably the greatest

writer, was a playwright, so they are plays and they are about the

relationship of people to each other. And great characters.

Wonderful characters in great situations exploring the emotions we

can have. Kids can relate to all of that very easily. Something like A

Midsummer Night's Dream is perfect for children. Absolutely. And as we

know from the movie of Romeo and Juliet, it is a story of action and

excitement and love and all of those things are very accessible. As an

actor, you have done an eclectic mix of characters and we hear, is this

right, that you would like to be in EastEnders? I long to be in

EastEnders. We nearly fell off our chairs when we heard that. My great

friend and Mitchell is in it and has been magnificent and I would love to

be in it. The great thing about EastEnders Coronation Street or

whatever come you get a character and you can go deeper and deeper and

deeper. In a play, you have two and a half hours of the character but in

EastEnders or Coronation Street, you have years of the full life story of

a person and can redefine something fantastic that people relate to. We

were banging our heads together. We thought you would have a stall in

the market, and this is what it would look like if you did. Selling

old-fashioned books. I will send that in, that will be my audition. I

would fancy playing a bookmaker. When I was young, as a young actor,

I played a character who was a bookie at the Derby, and I got a

review in the Sporting Life Sentence Case Which Said I Played It As If I

Had Been One All My Life, Said That Is The Best Review. -- as if I had

played it all my life, which is the best review. And you can see Being

Shakespeare from Harold Pinter Theatre Theatre tomorrow. George

Eustice today reveal details of the ?10 million fund to help farmers

affected by the floods and the Government says it is spending more

than ever before on flood defences. Anita has been to Holland to see

what serious investment can buy you. The Dutch spend over ?1 billion

every year on flood management and prevention, twice what we spend in

the UK, despite being a sixth of our size and having a tenth of our

population. I am in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. Now, this is a city

under siege from water, because 80% of it is below sea level. If it

didn't have its defences, it would be under 1-2 metres of water, around

six feet. And in the worst areas, it could be under six metres of water,

the height of a two story house. In 1953, Rotterdam suffered

catastrophic flooding. Nearly 2,000 people were killed. As a result, the

Dutch decided to take action so a disaster like that could never

happen again. Rotterdam is at risk of flooding in four different

directions. Rainwater, ground water, but you have also got the sea in

that direction and rivers that flow in from Germany over there, so if it

wasn't for their flood defences, this place wouldn't stand a chance.

But there is a twist to how they deal with the flood threat. The

Dutch strategy is to keep their enemy close. It is not just a case

of fighting to keep the water at bay, they channel its power and work

with the water as well as against it. I am taking a trip around the

city to find out more. Let's start with this. It looks like a

playground. Here we try to combine a theatre and a basketball field with

water storage and this is what we call a water playground. It is built

and designed to cope with the excessive rainfall. Raindrops

falling on the roof and slowly, they will go through the gutter system

into these basins. With this, we are creating or regenerating and

actually, the sponge function of the city. Sponge function? I love that.

So because it is so concrete now, there is no sponge function. That is

what is happening, it is the combination of urbanisation and

climate change making a lack of water storage in cities. We want to

do it in a multifunctional way. This Plaza holds the same amount of water

as 8,500 bathtubs. There are two others like it in Rotterdam and

plans to build more. Not all of the rainwater they collect is in places

as obvious as this, though. I am being taken to the top of one of the

city's high-rise buildings, with a special kind of roof. This is a

green roof, no concrete. And this obviously has an important function?

Yes, it makes a sponge on the top of the roof, catching the rainwater.

This is a kind of mask that connects more water. The soil and the plans

collect the water and keep it inside and if there is an overflow of

water, it slowly goes down the roof, so we collect a lot of water. There

are quite a few, do people have an incentive to change their roots?

Yes, we pay a little money. Private people, 45 euros per square metre

and we subsidise it to 30 euros. So most part, we pay to get it started.

This is one of the easier assistance to implement because it can be built

on any flat roof that is strong enough. We are already building them

in the UK but unlike the Dutch, our government doesn't offer subsidies

to build them. So when was the last time Rotterdam flooded? And very,

very long time ago but only in small places have had problems in the last

year. Like in many urban areas, heavy rainfall in Rotterdam flows

into the sewage systems and as we have seen in the UK, the systems can

overflow. But this car park has been built with a giant basin underneath

that holds enough overflow sewage to fill four Olympic sized swimming

pools, keeping it off the streets. There is a big cheese, all the

sewage water comes through, we open the Volvo and all the sewage water

runs below this right. So it is basically a sewage overflow. We

flush it again like a toilet. Who would've thought you could do a

sewage overflow under a car park! Let's use it. The idea is free, use

it! I can't help but be seriously impressed with the creativity of the

Dutch. They have a long-term vision and a short-term action plan to make

it happen. I find that fascinating! I am not sure about going on the

tour! One British flood victim who build their own flood defence is Sam

Notaro. The good news is, the water is going down and his home-made

ramparts did their job. Tony is also here. Last week we spoke about the

residents of Plainfield, outside Glasgow, and told their terrifying

story. You have an update tonight? It's marvellous news. A week ago, I

went to see Fiona in her garden and various other residents, their

houses had been built on contaminated land. They had been

landed with a bill of ?600,000 to remove it. No way they could afford

it. I left them in absolute despair. On the programme that night, the

Chief Secretary of the Treasury announced that the UK Government

will give ?255,000 and asked the Scottish Government to match it.

Today the residents went to meet the Scottish finance secretary and he is

what he said after that meeting. The Scottish Government is going to make

available ?300,000 to undertake this work, it is important we get going

quickly to resolve this issue and the money will be available whenever

they require. Let's find out what they thought! It is just a lifeline

for us, not just the families involved but all the residents in

the whole area, it is magnificent news. Thanks to everyone who has

been involved and supportive of everything we have done. Thank you,

One Show. That is the people Power! Thank you very much indeed. As an

actor, Simon is used to playing countless characters. But the one

creature, being a master of disguise as a matter of life or death. Rock

pools are home to a surprising array of creatures, all struggling to

survive. But no two rock falls are the same and that can make them

tricky places to live. Some have dark, rocky surfaces, others have

pale, sandy bottoms. Scientists are discovering that these differences

can have a striking effect on the animals that live in them. This is a

sure crap but they are markedly different in colour. This one is

paler, this one is darker brown. Yet they are the same as beaches. This

colour different stored to be related to wear each crab grew up.

Scientists believe they take on the appearance of the environment so

once in sandy rock pools will be paler than those among black rock.

The more they blend in with their surroundings, the safer they will

be. If you can't change your own colour, there are other ways of

manipulating the way you look. This doctor from Plymouth University has

made remarkable discoveries about a different kind of crap, a hermit

crab. They don't have a shell over the abdomen. The act almost like

portable borrows. They are really quite fussy about what sort of shell

they want to go in, they want a shell big enough to protect them. We

found out that they are also fussy about the colour of the shell. We

are putting dark shelled crabs onto a yellow background. And giving each

one simulation tools to choose from. He's just investigating? Yes,

probably what he is trying to do is get a sense of the internal volume

of the shell. That's politics might -- that's brilliant! Once they have

decided they're going to move, they want it" play. So it could save your

life? It could maximise your chances of not being denied for someone

else. He has found that 75% of the crabs he has tested can switch

shells. Some new tests being carried out in Exeter have revealed another

British creature taking camouflaged or whole new level. These and

assuming fish spend their lives in rock pools. -- on assuming fish. Low

tide, you can be vulnerable to predators like birds and at high

tide commute can be attacked by live fish. But they have a trump card.

They can change colour. And in under a minute, Now it is time to be

released into the wild, to put their camouflage girls to good use who

knows what other clever adaptations there are on our shores. Still to

come, the history of if synthetic underwear to be banned

in Russia and Belarus? It is true! People are being arrested for this.

I would be in a state if they got rid of synthetic underwear! Rasputin

wore the same underwear for six months! True! They said he's not

like a goat. Here is the next film. My subject today is pants. No

sniggering at the back, please. I'm speaking of the history of male

underwear. It is 80 years since Jockey briefs revolutionised the

industry. Before that it was a rather long story, more of that in a

moment. First, I'm heading underground to see some very early

examples of man's creations. These look like flattened mice but in fact

they are codpieces. They are, they were the protective garment worn by

men in the late 15th century. It would have started off in much as a

practical form of protection but gradually became more and more

elaborate and ornamented, to the extent where they became a hugely

decorated protrusion. Underwear change for a little until the 18th

century. Men from the poorer classes went without. The length of the

shirt often operated as the protective layer between the body

and the trousers. Industrialisation in the 19th century saw the

development of new styles and sewing techniques. By now underwear was

closer fitting, often covering the whole body. Fabrics included linen,

silk, cotton and wool. A doctor proposed form of healthy living

which involved wearing wool mixed to the body, it was the healthy way for

the body to be. Explorers Scot Andy Jaeger wore wool. Winston Churchill

was very extravagant, he wore pink silk underwear. His wife told her

sister-in-law it was because he needed to expend money on scans of

undergarments because he had delicate skin. Then there were

jockeys in the 1930s. Their brief but supportive design was an

immediate hit. What was innovative about the white front was it was one

of the first times that men's underwear offered support. The other

innovation that was patented was the opening. And that design opened up

the marketplace. Suddenly, underwear was cool. A fertile ground for

marketing men everywhere. 1985 saw that famous Levi's commercial.

Boxers were first developed immunity and 30s to replace the belted shorts

worn by foxes. Two decades later, thanks to David Beckham, the tighter

fitting undergarment was back in vogue. So how did underwear become

such an important thing in the world of fashion? You have big superb

rounds, Armani, the Saatchi, all of them design underwear, it is a great

way for them to get a customer. People want to buy into a designer

or celebrity brand, they can get quite a cheap price point. A man of

sophistication is measured by the style of his pants! I think you can

tell men's personalities by their parents buying. Somebody who might

buy a boxer is more traditional, they have probably gone to

university, public school. Somebody like this, this is probably more

like an Essex lad. So you can see there are differences in different

styles and different people who wear them. I wonder how many pairs the

average man owns? I have probably about 30. I will buy about that many

every year. Is that bad? So when it comes to men's underwear,

unsurprisingly, it's a matter of choice. Some choose to lose, some

choose tight, some gopher comfort, some go for fashion. But most of us

just wear whatever we have been given by our partner or how mum. 30

pairs of pants! That is excessive! We asked for pictures of your lucky

pants. We had loads. This is Antoinette, with her family's lucky

pants, they have been all around the world. She wears these for the six

Nations, it has brought good luck. Keep wearing them! These are from

Eugene in Brighton, he says they are so lucky, they got me on the One

Show! You can see Simon in Being Shakespeare at the Harold Pinter

Theatre from tomorrow. Tomorrow's guests are Jerry Springer and Gaby

Roslin.