23/11/2017 The One Show

Hello and welcome to

The One Show with Matt Baker...

And Alex Jones, and tonight we're

joined by a man who made his name

in Downton Abbey,

before finding huge success

in Hollywood with films

like Beauty and the Beast.

With all that success,

I wonder how he's enjoying his

time in the States?

The crowds, the people that lined

the streets when I go out...

At the

balls, dinners, speeches, parties.

There was never a king or emperor of

the earth such as he. I can't wait

to get home!

And here he is - home at last -

it's Dan Stevens!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you very much.

Sorry for that

joke!

Amazing, but very naughty.

We

note you are not that much of a diva

really.

Really? I did insist on a

specific temperature for this water,

though! Can you tell?

I can. We have

stolen some audio from your film,

new film, you play Charles Dickens.

I do.

We will talk about the new

film in a moment that you are back

today, after getting the plane from

LA, does it feel nice?

Very nice, it

doesn't feel like Christmas without

a bit of cold, London gloom.

It must

be nice for you to be involved in

heart-warming Christmas tale after

you ruined many people's Christmas

in 2012 after being killed off in

Downton Abbey. I hope your fans are

coming to terms with this question

at the rehab programme.

I've gone

about inventing Christmas this time!

You owed us.

There was a bit of work

to do.

We will talk about the new

film later.

Thoroughly enjoyed!

It's predicted that we'll spend

£700 million online tomorrow before

the high street shops have even

opened, just to get our hands

on the best Black Friday bargains.

It was the biggest shopping day

of the year last year,

and the pressure is on for retailers

to make the most of the sales

frenzy, as Matt's found out...

Monday morning, 7am, and workers at

the Argos distribution centre at

Burton on Trent are starting their

busiest week of the year. Over 2

million products are expected to be

processed here in preparation for

the sales frenzy that is Black

Friday. It's a tough time for

retailers right now. Reports of

stagnant sales growth, a rise in

inflation and interest rates on the

up means they are working harder and

harder to get us to part with our

cash. But Black Friday...

Come on! Truckloads of items set for

a price drop have arrived from

manufacturers across Asia. Sorting

through the mountain of merchandise

is say. She usually works in

payroll, but every year she gets so

excited about the big day that she

volunteers to work on the warehouse

floor. Why would you leave your nice

cushy payroll job and come here on

the packing floor?

I still love

doing it. The atmosphere is so

exciting. We all in high spirits.

I

have a problem with Black Friday. I

don't like it.

Why?

My suspicion is

if they are selling it cheap at this

time, it should have been that price

in the first place. Give me the

bargain all year round.

This is the

time of year I get my Christmas

stuff, we did it last year and got

right bargains.

How much?

50- £100

we saved items.

As it goes through

do you think, that would be nice?

I

just did that with the headphones.

Almost half of sales across the

retail industry occur in the last

three months of the year, with the

biggest spike on Black Friday 's win

over £2 billion was spent last year.

Sainsbury's, who own Argos, are

under extra pressure this year, as

profits have fallen by 9%. John

Rogers is their CEO. How important

is this Black Friday?

The Black

Friday event is very important for

us as retailers, as it signals the

start into is Christmas. Customers

tell us they want to have the

opportunity to buy into some great

deals.

Are they, or really? Which

magazine says 60% of these offers

actually you would be able to find

cheaper either before or after?

For

the vast majority of these will be

the best prices you can buy these

items. Why can you guarantee that?

We can't guarantee because we run

thousands of promotions and offers

through the years.

This warehouse is

the size of ten football pitches and

its 12 55 foot cranes, an army of

automated machines operate 24 hour

debt, seven days a week. Up there

are 74,000 boxes, containing items

that we are going to order at a rate

of 18 every second in the run-up to

Christmas. All I'm saying is, it

better be what he wanted! Alan Parry

is in charge of managing all the

goods coming and going through the

warehouse. In 14 years of working

here, he's never seen so much

activity. How did we ever survive

before Black Friday? It has only

been the last five years also.

It

seems to have brought the busy

period forward, to get the presence

in early.

Do you ever think, who

needs all this stuff customer

some

items, yes, definitely.

I have to be

positive, all these people are

working.

Similar themes will be running

across the country is all major

retailers try to cash in on this

American import, but with annual

sales figures falling for the first

time in four years, is it make or

break for the retailers? Molly

Johnson Jones is a retail analyst

for global data.

Black Friday isn't really Black

Friday any more, is it? It seems

like there are days either side of

it all the way to Christmas on Mars?

They realised they could encourage

more purchasing if they extended it.

That impulse buying is where you can

come a cropper, where you didn't

realise you needed a new television

until Black Friday comes on you see

one on the screen?

You think my

goodness, 70% off, it's too good bid

to be true, I must buy it when you

didn't need any weight.

Gadgets and

livestock products are expected to

be big sellers this year. With

prices for phones, games consoles,

tablets and blend is all being

slashed. At the Peking station, say

planes have a full proof plan for

this year.

I'm quite careful with

what I buy, I make sure I stick to

my list.

I want an iPad. Do you?

I've got one, it's underwhelming.

Really? I don't like Black Friday

but Fay cast have the right idea,

making a list of what you want

before handing down the discounts.

That way, yeah, I suppose it's all

right. Merry Christmas!

The Scrooge of Black Friday is with

us now. The thing is with Black

Friday, it's not necessarily

cheaper, is it, than other times of

the year?

That's what Which? Found,

60% of the offerings, with bubble

gum bargains, can be found before or

after Black Friday cheaper than the

price that is advertised Ostberg is

one of those things, if you buy on

impulse there's a good chance you

could have got it cheaper another

time.

You get a sense so many people

are poised, just ready to absolutely

go off at these deals. But for you,

your top tip is do everything

online, don't go to the shops?

No,

and that's the reputation of Scott.

You see people fighting, scrapping

at the tills. There is really no

point. Both of the online price, for

so many reasons. The main one being

you are protected if you change your

mind, if you buy online, which you

are not necessarily in a shop. You

have 14 days to change your mind,

send the thing back. That buyer's

remorse that so many people say, one

in three purchases people say that

they make on Black Friday they then

regret. Well, you have 14 days to

regret it and do something about it.

Because you bought it and saying?

When it arrives you can make the

decision then. 14 days from delivery

by law, that's the crucial thing. If

you do in a shop, you are at the

mercy of their policy, which may

sake, no thank you very much, we

will give you a credit note or

something else but not necessarily a

refund.

To be fair, some shops

refund if you say it's not suitable,

they do sometimes. But as you say,

they don't have to.

They don't have

to. If they have a policy, they had

to stick to it.

See. We know it is a

big thing in the states but is it a

big thing in your house, Black

Friday on Cyber Monday and all the

rest of it? Not really. It's a big

thing over there and it has become a

big thing over here. It makes me

think people don't want it so much

for the bargains but because they

want to ruck.

Sanctions looting in a

way!

Warming up right now.

And

aggressive atmosphere.

There is an

antidote, some have come up with an

antidote.

Yes, some people make it

international by nothing, spend

nothing.

That is a bit extreme! What

about a sandwich?

You've probably

got enough in the house to make a

sandwich.

You haven't seen my

fridge, to be fair!

Some people say

make international stop spending day

and some charities say what you

should do is spend, buy something

that meant sure it goes to someone

who really needs it.

That is a nice

idea. Thank you.

So you won't be

buying anything?

Definitely not!

I

will check on you!

We'll be talking to Dan

about his new film based

on A Christmas Carol,

in just a tick, but it turns out

Charles Dickens wasn't the only

writer to be inspired by a lonely,

Scrooge-like character.

Here's Arthur Smith...

Who incidentally, is not a lonely

Scrooge-like character...

Cwmdonkin Park in Swansea,

generations of children have let

their imaginations run riot here.

The poet Dylan Thomas spent a bunch

of his childhood in this park, which

he described as a world within a

world.

This was Thomas' playground and

retreat, and the inspiration for one

of his most haunting poems. The

hunchback in the park, the solitary

Mr propped between trees and water,

from the opening of the garden

Lockstep lets the trees and water

enter until it goes....

It's a poem about an old outcast man

who seeks solace in this Green Park

but finds himself tormented by

sniggering schoolboys. Thomas

recorded the poem in 1953 but he had

written the first draft two decades

earlier as a 17-year-old schoolboy.

Like the Park birds, came early,

like the water, he set down, and Mr,

they called, had, Mr Tomovic ruined

boys from the town.

Antiquarian book-seller Jeff has

been collecting the poet's work for

45 years. Hunchback is not a word we

use now, but clearly Thomas felt a

huge empathy for this character?

Yes, I think he did. In Dylan

Thomas' life, he was always on the

side of the underdog. He loved

Charlie Chaplin's little character,

so for him, downtrodden people,

people being treated badly affected

him.

Do you think this character

really existed?

I think so. I think

in this case it was a genuine

response to something that was

happening in front of him.

How would

he have seen him every day, going to

school, through the park?

This park,

next to his home was the most

important place in his childhood. He

had these amusing notebooks, four

notebooks were poems. This was in

the notebook in 1932 and Tierney

went back to it again in 1941. If we

look at the notebook version, the

first few lines are almost exactly

the same, but then there is this

line, going daft for 57 years is

getting dafter. It is an awful line

in anybody's book. His clap set and

further on... He learnt what was

good and what was bad. I think what

happened to him in those nine years

is he went to London, he got

published, got married, he had a

child, the war was looming. All

these things had an affect on him,

that took him back to childhood.

Past Lake and Rocco Read, laughing

when he shook his paper, hunched

back in mockery.

Jeff has lovingly restored Thomas'

childhood home, just a stone's throw

from the park. It was in this

bedroom that Thomas, a rather

solitary teenager, started crafting

the Hunchback.

The old dog slept alone, while the

boys among willows made the Tigers

jump out of their eyes to roar on

the rockery stones.

Why do you think he'd noticed this

man in the park in a different way

to the other boys?

I think probably because he was

something of a loner himself. He was

a small, shy boy, very studious,

very wrapped up in his poetry. I

think a little story that

illustrates that is when his first

girlfriend was coming to stay, he

wrote to her and said I feel so

uneasy that go upstairs and hide in

the toilet when you arrive. He an of

people. He sees the old man being

tormented by other schoolboys and he

feels a part of him, rather than as

a part of the tormentors.

All night in the maid Park, after

the railings and shrubberies, the

birds, the grass, the trees, the

lake and the wild boys, innocent as

strawberries, followed the hunchback

to his kennel in the dark.

Well, the hunchback is gone, the

boys are gone and so Dylan Thomas,

but this view it beautiful park is

still here, and so is the beautiful

poem.

Cwmdonkin Park Almac is a good word,

isn't it?

Yeah.

Say that word.

Cwmdonkin.

Where are we going with

this?

This is the most wonderful way

of retelling the story of A

Christmas Carol. It's kind of how

Charles Dickens comes up with the

story and everything in between

because he's down on his luck at

this point, it's like a biopic at

this point.

He has reached a rough

patch, he has been a bit of a rock

star and had early hits and three

books back to back haven't really

landed on his massively ambitious,

he has four kids with one on the

way, putting himself under huge

pressure and he wants to write this

book that takes a stab, the society

around him, the rise of rampant

industrial capitalism, the treatment

of the poor and the children and

he's very angry about a lot of

things. He decides he's going to

write a book that is set at

Christmas and write it in six weeks

by Christmas, which is completely

mad and he drives himself almost mad

doing it. By all accounts his

daughter would come into his study

and find him making these faces and

conjuring these characters in the

mirror. It wasn't until he came up

with the character and the voice and

name he could work with them and

this was whipped into one of the

best Christmas books of all time.

That's one of the most intricate --

interesting things, the way he comes

up with the characters, and that's

the clip we have got, this is him

creating Scrooge.

Christmas.

What about it?

What is it

but an excuse for picking a man's

pocket every 25th of December?

Keep

going.

Everyone who goes on with

Merry Christmas on his lips should

be buried with a Christmas pudding

through his heart.

Eorpa Trail of Dickens is incredibly

energetic. He's quite manic, isn't

he? Did you base him on anyone in

particular?

The hair is quite Gene

Wilder.

The wig is quite something.

We wanted the film to be funny and

for him to have that mad energy, the

lady who plays our housekeeper Mrs

Fisk who is a Dickens nut and knows

everything about him and came up to

me the first day and said he was

bipolar and I haven't specifically

diagnosed him as such but the more

you look at his work and

biographical details, there were

these manic swings and energetic

periods and then periods of total

blank bleakness. There is as much

about the creative process and a

writer of getting to grips with his

work as there is about Christmas in

our film.

We learn in the film that

in that period of time Christmas

wasn't really celebrated in the UK,

which I was devastated about, I'll

be honest. So Dickens did almost

bring it back with this book.

He saw

something at the time that was one

of the religious festivals but not a

big cultural event. He saw something

in the winter solstice, the

remembering, the shortest day of the

year, the darkest and bleakest time,

the light will return, and the hope

of that and the joy and finding a

little laughter in the heart in that

really dark time, that is what is at

the core of the story that was what

was wonderful to realise that he was

trying to get at.

Such a character,

almost like a rock star.

Yes, at the

beginning we see him in America and

he has been well received over there

and he used to give these famous

readings and he was really loving

it. Then he came home and had a

total blank and didn't know what he

would do. He was inspired but I

don't know where it came from.

The

thing is now you are in one of these

big Christmas films. So forevermore

you will be the man in the Christmas

film. Are you Christmassy enough to

take on the mantle?

I hope so, I

love Christmas and it's very nice to

join the Canon. I guess Muppet

Christmas Carol would have to be one

of my favourite, it's not really

Christmas until we have watched

that. It is nice to celebrate that

time of year, celebrate one of my

favourite authors and one of our

culture's most beloved books.

It is

beautiful.

Thank you.

It is really

good.

Obviously you have been doing

your research but if you thought

Dickens' life was an open book,

Gyles Brandreth has managed to

uncover a few of the missing

chapters.

Look at this.

The peerless Mr

Charles Dickens was a writer as lead

and interesting as one of his many

characters. For example, he was once

involved in a terrible train crash

and assisted many of the wounded

before help arrived.

And here we are at his London house.

Now, as you know, A Christmas Carol

isn't just a Christmas story, it's a

ghost story, and no wonder, Mr

Dickens was keenly interested in all

things supernatural. He was even

linked to the famous paranormal

investigation group The Ghost Club

Of London, investigating paranormal

activity and sightings of the

unexplained. Dickens was something

of an obsessive-compulsive. When he

stayed away he liked to rearrange

his hotel furniture, and at home he

liked to sleep with his head

pointing north because he believed

it improved his writing. I think we

can agree that that one worked a

charm. He was wonderfully theatrical

command very fond of animals. He

kept a pet raven called Grip, and

when Grip died he had him stuffed

and mounted, and then he

immortalised him as a character in

his novel Barnaby rush. I hope these

facts aren't leaving you flummoxed,

or suffering from boarding, two

words apparently created by Mr

Dickens, of more than 200 that

included fluffiness, Rampage and the

verb to manslaughter. -- Barnaby

Rudge. Are you getting sleepy yet?

Dickens was a great advocate of

hypnosis and attempted to use it on

his wife and children to cure the

ills. Dickens was fascinated by

magic and performed magic shows in

public, his most famous trick was

the pudding wonder in which he would

take a gentleman's hats and mix into

it flour and eggs and moments later

magically produce a Christmas Plum

Pudding, ready for the audience to

eat. Delicious! I know what you're

thinking. What the dickens? But what

the dickens has nothing to do with

Charles Dickens. It's a phrase from

another, William Shakespeare, who

used it in the Merry wives of

Winsor.

Those are a few for you,

Dan.

I've got to practice that hat

trick.

Thank you, Dan, and Gyles

Brandreth and the Charles Dickens

Museum. Have you visited?

I haven't.

You should visit.

They might give

you a discount.

You are not stopping

for long, you're going back to LA.

I'm shooting the second season of

Legion.

This is one of the superhero

dramas.

Kind of and it's kind of

amazing and it's kind of a superhero

thing and it's a weird and wonderful

show. Very lucky to be on that.

You

look like you addressed to be part

of the cast with what you are

wearing.

I don't just throw these

things together. What can I say? Who

do you play?

IPlayer character

called David Hall, who if you are

familiar with the X-Men comics,

Professor Charles Xavier, I am his

illegitimate son, diagnosed as

paranoid schizophrenic for most of

my life but there may be something

else going on. That is sort of way

we start.

You are having Christmas

in LA?

Yes, the first time.

Do they

have trees and stuff?

They do trees,

they don't do Christmas pudding,

mince pies, and crackers, I

discovered.

We are on Regent Street

and they have it all down there.

I

could do one big sweep. I tried to

take crackers back to LA in my hand

luggage one year and I was told I

couldn't take them because they were

explosives. Which they sort of art

if you think about it.

I will make

you a list of what you need.

We are taking you back to a period

in history that provided the

backdrop to the early days of

Downton Abbey, the First World War.

In 1917, German bombers flew over

London in their first-ever

daylight raid on the UK.

They were aiming for the docks,

but they missed the mark.

100 years ago a German bomb landed

here in Poplar, East London,

destroying a local primary school.

18 children were killed, most of

them between four and six years of

age. It was part of a daylight raid

that killed more than 150 people

across the capital. The horrors of

the bullets are notorious. But

German air raids also caused

significant damage here during the

First World War and the East End of

London was badly hit. Local

historian Stan Kaye has been looking

into what happened that fateful day

at Upper North Street School.

Clearly the school building took a

lot of damage, I mean, it has gone

and they have to rebuild.

That is

the new school.

That's the new

school over there.

Where we are

standing now was the old school. It

was bombed at 11:40am in the

morning, the first daylight raid by

German bombers. The bomb came

through the top floor and killed a

young child and then came the next

one and killed another child and

they exploded on the ground floor.

So it went right the way through the

building, killing as it went.

Yes,

right the way through, killing as it

went. Parents and relatives rushed

to the school and clawed with their

hands to did the children out. One

child was only identified by a

button that their mother had sewn on

that morning.

The funeral was a big

affair, wasn't it?

They reckon they

could have been over 100,000 people

lining the streets. Over 850 floral

tributes were sent from all around

the world. The king and queen sent

their wishes.

Surviving pupil Jack

Brown was interviewed about his

experience by the BBC in 2007.

I

don't really remember a bang as

such. Even when I remember the glass

coming in and smashing down all over

the place. I remember there was no

panic, no fear, because it was so

new and sudden and everything that

the children would just bewildered,

I think, and stunned.

In 1950 the

school was renamed a flower primary.

Ms bleach is the current

headteacher. We have something

rather special here, don't we?

This

was the logbook and diary kept by

the headteacher.

Somehow survived,

what on earth did he say?

13th of

the sixth 1917, 11:40am, air raid,

bomb fell through roof and went

through floor. Rose Martin was

killed, and Prichard seriously ill

in hospital. Children's sobbed and

wailed, clinging and standing close

to their teachers.

What happened the

next day?

The children were called

back so they could take the register

and see who survived and who were

still missing. We know from one of

the survivors that as the

headteacher read the names of

children who were not there he was

crying and said it was the first

time he'd ever seen a grown man cry.

As the community mourned, a poignant

memorial was built as a reminder of

their loss. 100 years on Lidl

Dummett Edward, John and Andrew who

had relatives at the school have

come here to remember them.

My heart

Dummett father was Henry Hollis and

he was at the school and he would

have been eight years old, his

brother William died in the bombing.

My dad had to run an errand for one

of the teachers. As he came back

from the shop the bomb exploded and

he said it was pandemonium

everywhere. -- my father was Henry

Hollins.

The inference was divided

by a very thin partition and the

children on one side were the lucky

ones. Uncle George and William

Hollis were in the unfortunate side

in which the bomb exploded.

My uncle

describes how the parents rushed

there. My grandmother rushed there,

apparently holding one shoe in her

hand, so this was cataclysmic for

them. This year Her Majesty the

Queen and Duke of Edinburgh attended

a special service to commemorate

those who lost their lives. 100

years may have passed but the

Tragedy will never be forgotten.

And if you're interested

in World War history,

there's a new four-part series

starting on BBC Two tonight called

Blitz: The Bombs That Changed

Britain - that's at 9pm.

That's it for tonight -

thank you to our guest Dan Stevens.

The Man Who Invented Christmas

is in cinemas on 1st December.

Patrick Kielty's

in for Matt tomorrow.

We are joined by Len Goodman looking

at the best of British music.

There

he is pointing already. Have a good

evening.