24/10/2013 The One Show

Hello and welcome to The One Show with Alex Jones and Matt Baker. Two

people who are stepping out of their comfort zone, a British Muslim who

is bent 18 months trying to CIA to eye with this man. -- who spent 18

months trying to say it to eye. And a comedian who spent time trying to

observe the habits of sheep. Please welcome Ed Byrne. This being live

television, you nearly didn't get here on time. The traffic in London

is shocking tonight. I nearly had to do that thing where I got out of the

car and started running. It started moving. I am determined to beat the

car! And then the car pulled up and said, are you sure you don't want to

get back in? Help yourself to water and thanks for making it. The style

of your show, Roaring Forties, all of these things that annoy you. I

talk about the thing that I have been an old git all my life and now

I have reached my 40s, I feel like I can relax into it and talk about all

the things that I hate in the world. We could not believe you were

in your 40s. You are so whose fault. -- so useful.

If you have found yourself with a gripe that has only come about since

reaching your 40s, get in touch and share it. It might end up in the

show. We will put your gripes to Ed and see if it can offer any worldly

wisdom. Prepare for a culture shock documentary. In a programme that

airs next week, Muslim political commentator Mo Ansar, who calls for

the English Defence League to be banned, is filmed over an 18 month

period as he gets to know the leader of the EDL, Tommy Robinson. They

were brought together by Nicky Campbell last April, and Nikki takes

up the story. Tommy Robinson was the founder and

leader of the Indus defence league, always at the forefront of their

controversial Street protests. I don't care if you say I am racist, I

don't care what you say to me. In April 2012, when Tommy Robinson was

still the leader of the list defence league, he took part in a

conversation about far right extremists. You can't call everyone

who opposes Islam the far right. The man who had tried to get the EDL

band issued a surprising invitation. If you ever want come to meet my

family for dinner, you are more than welcome. This unexpected gesture of

friendship was the start of something for both Tommy and Mo. I

had in my mind that if the opportunity came out, I would want

to reach out to him somehow. He doesn't seem to have an answer to a

lot of the issues but I warmed to him when I met him. No Muslim had

ever asked to address the EDL leader before. Tommy set up a meeting in

Luton, where it all began. At the issued Mo with a warning. These

people don't hate you, they ordinary people who have concerns and fears

about what has happened to their country. The most important thing is

to open up a dialogue. As somebody who was born in this country and is

British, I think I uphold British values. I am also a Muslim. Islam is

not here to take over the country or the world. That is not the Islam

that I know. The Islam that I know lives in coexistence, honours and

respects British virtues and values. Does anyone recognise the Islam that

Mo is talking about. Muslims are not one tribe. They do not think the

same. So you can't defend Islam. You can defend yours but nobody else's.

The meeting adjourned to allow Mo to pray. Mo was pleased, it felt like a

good first. He was relieved they had listened to each other. They had

strongly held views and it is the kind of thing we need to do more.

That conversation could have gone on for weeks. I think it went good, I

hope it has changed Mo's perception, I hope it showed him that people

have concerns. Tommy agreed to visit this mosque in Walsall. It was the

first time he had ever entered a mosque and to some of his followers,

this would have been unthinkable. Tommy, too, still had serious

misgivings. I think a mosque is a command and control centre. I think

the last thing they do is pray. I don't want any more mosques built

because I believe we are adding to the problem. When Islam integrates

and assimilates in the same way as every other ideology and religion,

then they can build more mosques. We will take our shoes off here. We

will put them off here and go through. Mo took Tommy upstairs to

watch the afternoon prayers, whilst most of the men low were completely

unaware the leader of the list defence league was in their midst.

-- the men below. Were unaware the leader of the English Defence League

were in their missed. Tommy thinks it is wrong that women have to pray

behind the men. On this visit, Mo took Tommy to meet

with one of Britain's's leading Muslim scholars. Every mosque I look

at, I can find a homophobic, anti-Semitic creature who will come

into this country and give a sermon. They should be stopped for some to

be a good Muslim I have to be a good human being before everything. I

disagree with a lot of your views but I respect you as a human being

for it cannot harm you, it is forbidden.

People want to smash my face in, murder my kids, my wife. Don't

measure is long by the behaviour of some. We have to make the best of

the situation. The best of the situation is finding the good ones

and the moderate ones and pushing them to the forefront and making

sure they are heard. A fascinating film and Mo is with

us. Welcome, nice to see you. Why did you invite Tommy into your world

and in hindsight, do you have any regrets? Muslims all over the

country have been worried and concerned about the rising tensions,

the increase in anti-Muslim prejudice and attacks. I thought,

you have got to start somewhere. For going on the programme on big

questions, I asked a higher authority for advice. I checked with

my wife first. I said to my Mrs, if I get the opportunity, I will invite

him. She said it was fine. It did seem that he was open to dialogue,

did you find he was different on camera than when the cameras were

off? At the start of the journey, Tommy in particular committee is

used to that kind of raucous situation. He puts up a lot of front

and bravado. As time went on and we got to know each other, as the

cameras were lifted or put aside, we were beginning to have more open

dialogue. If you want to pursue peace, whether it is rhetorical

weapons or physical arms, you have got to put them down and come around

the table and have a conversation. You were saying there were lots of

parts of Tommy that you learned to love by the end of the documentary.

On two occasions, we were sat on the big questions, going hammer and

tongs at each other. Twitter picked up on the fact that we both cracked

up a little bit. We looked at each other and it was like being kids at

the back of the classroom and you start giggling, you don't know why.

There was another time on the back streets of Newcastle, the EDL

rally, after some recent events and tensions were running high. We were

having a really heated debate. Tommy is a bit cheeky, he put his arm

around me. As someone who stands up against fascism and hate and

prejudice, I didn't like it. I tried to laugh it off, it is not easy. As

a person of faith, you kind of accepted and you go with it. It took

a real dramatic ending, the whole tale. Yes, we have spent 18 months

on this journey together. We have listened to both sides of the

argument. He has met a lot of Muslims, I have met members of the

EDL. I suppose it is dramatic, the idea that Tommy resigned from the

EDL. It was quite a shock to a lot of people across the country. Having

been on the journey with him, I began to see him softening on some

of his views. Maybe not all of them but enough. Some of his views, you

agree with. He says you can't call anyone who opposes everything to do

with Islam the far right. How could you not agree with that. It is a

relatively reasonable statement. The bit when people are perhaps saying,

we don't want you in our country, giving Nazi salutes, saying we don't

want any more mosques, maybe you are not British... I am born here, I am

raised here, my grandfather fought in World War II lost two of his

brothers, I have a right to express my fate in this country. For

somebody to say you're not part of Britain it is difficult to content

with -- express my faith in this country. You have criticised some

muslin voices. There is an intolerant strain within all

communities. -- Muslim voices. Whatever background you come from

there are extreme voices and it is really important that people who

have got sensible voices are very British way of doing things, perhaps

walking through your problems are not going to the extremes of the

situation, I think you do have to speak up. When people oppose

equality, they are homophobic or racist or sexist, I think it is

important that people find their voice and speak up. Is this an area

you would always avoid as a comedian? Religion is a big things

that comedians like to talk about. I am an atheist at when I do jokes

about religion, I generally make fun of Christianity because that is

where I am from. You are an atheist... It's fine... If you have

a pop at Christianity, the main thing people say is you would not

say that about Muslims. I have also had a go at Hindus and Muslims. I am

all-inclusive when it comes to making fun of religion. It is an

easy thing to make fun of. If you apply a serious logic, it is a

difficult thing for it to stand up so it is easy to have a pop at it.

The overall conclusion of this documentary? What you have

experienced over 18 months? Slightly cynical but cautiously optimistic.

The most important thing is when you have differences, tensions and

difficulties, the only way is dialogue. You don't tackle hate with

more hate. It is a lesson for all of us. Don't miss Quitting The English

Defence League: When Tommy Met Mo. It is on Monday night at 10:35pm on

BBC One. As well as clamouring to the top of his profession as a

stand-up, in his spare time, Ed can be found climbing hills and scaling

mountains. So much so... In the hill walker Bible, the great outdoors.

Who better to send up one of Snowdonia's highest peaks, to have a

look at Juniper plans. Would you sign this form it?

Juniper is one of the oldest plants in the UK with most populations

confined to mountainous regions, like here in Snowdonia National

Park. Ed's mission needs a love of climbing and a passion for plants.

Luckily he has both. I was enrolled in a degree for horticulture for a

couple of years, before deciding academia was not the life for me.

Which is a shame because I somebody pointed out, if I had stuck with

gardening, I might have my own TV show by now. Your love of plants is

still there? I retained a love of plants and a love of Scotland. I

like to get Munros, I have done 72 of those mountains. Eventually I

will get them all done. I am a quarter of the way through. Let's

get a bit higher into the mountains and see a few more plants. Up until

the 1970s, Snowdonia was a stronghold for Juniper. As the

number of nibbling sheep in the Park has increased, they have decimated

the juniper bushes. They take off all of these tasty bits and this is

almost an ex-juniper bush. You have got to hand it to them, to get up

here, it is singing for your supper. Something like 43 different types of

invertebrate rely on Juniper for a living. 40 species of fungi also

depend on this rare plant, as well as a righty of small mammals and

birds, so it is vital for the Park. Trevor has been taking action by

searching out surviving Juniper bushes so they can then be

conserved. He has found Juniper right at the top of this huge peak,

but there is one new patch that he wants to survey and just can't

reach. There are lots of Juniper is on the slope, it is easy to see

them, but we can't get to them. It is on that Cliff, that is where we

are heading. We are abseiling? I like abseiling. This mountain, at

almost 3,000 feet, is almost the height of its neighbour, Mount

Snowdon. The Juniper is right at the top and it takes two hours of hard

hiking to reach it. What a view? Even with Snowdon

shrouded in mist. I think from the top, all the way down. I have been

up here for ten years or so, I have never got onto those slopes. That is

mainly because getting onto it needs a lot of help and specialist

equipment. That is the look, Ed. To get an idea

of Juniper numbers, they will need to abseil from the top of the cliff,

which has a 600 foot sheer drop into the lake, counting as they go.

And it is essential that someone stays behind and takes note of what

they find. On the steepest bits, there is no Juniper. Oh, there is

one to the left. Oh, yes! Trevor is hoping to find some Juniper

seedlings, a sure-fire sign that the population is thriving. One

seedling! Congratulations. We are proud fathers over here. So that is

about three centimetres across. We are going to call him Trevor.

But it is not all good news. This has got some problems. It has got

sheep poo on it. That is not good. So even then here, the sheep are

getting it. It is directly on top. But despite evidence of some

grazing, we managed to record a total of 50 juniper bushes. Scaling

back up, Trevor estimates there would be around 200 on the entire

cliff face, making this one of the most important Juniper site in

Snowdonia. It only takes two or three tiny seedlings on this whole

rock face and that is the future secured on this cliff.

Have you enjoyed your day? It was a great day. I thought it was about

learning boring Latin names, but rock, equipment, it is quite a manly

thing. That's what you like about it.

Really good. On behalf of everybody having a gin and tonic at the

moment, thanks for looking after Juniper. We were disappointed there

were no berries on them, that was the thing we were looking for. I

wanted to do the life from the Life Of Brian. You Said You Have Done 72

Munros, Have You Done Any More? I Have Done 73, I Popped Up And Did

Ben Nevis When I Was In The Edinburgh Festival. And The

Cairngorms. So You're Just Going To Crack On? 75 Isn't Bad For Someone

Who Lives In Essex. And If It Isn't A Monro, It Is A Corporate. 3,000

Feet Is A Corporate. -- Corbett. 3,000 Feet Is The Height Of The

Scottish Cloud Just Sits At! This Is A Whole New Film, We Need To Get You

Harnessed Up Again. We Have Seen You On The Hills, Let's See You On

Stage. This Is You Arguing With Your Wife.

While You Are Robbed, I Will Have A Sandwich. I'm Closing The Curtains!

-- while you are Rob. Because you told me to! Well, you are Rob now.

You are closer to the kitchen than I am. Yes, but you are up. My chair is

not made of kryptonite. It is not like I have no escape its evil

clutches and I am free to do what I like. Dry stone wall, I might as

well, I am up. It is just what we do. It is so true. You found the

clean bit of that show. There was a lot of editing before we founded. It

is cleaner, is that a point? It is up until the last five minutes. It

gets really filthy in the last five minutes, and the rest of it is one

of the most accessible I have done. This is all about you hitting 40.

How has your life changed from when you are in your 20s? I have always

been a difficult person to get along with, always wanting to be funny and

when I started to become a comic in my 20s, I was much easier to get on

with in everyday life. Now I am in my 40s, I have gone back to being an

idiot all the time, acting like a child. You know think that air

guitar is completely acceptable. It is one of those things, I just don't

care. You don't care if you are cool any more if you start doing this in

a bar. My wife hates it. I can see why. I generalise, but I will

generalise that the stake sake of stand-up. But you never hear a woman

sake he is not much to look at, but you should see him play air guitar!

And then I will start drums and she will say, which is it? Is that not

the pettiest restriction you can place on the one you love? You can

only pick one imaginary instrument! You must have some positive effect

on the audience members because two fainted last week. In Brighton. I

was talking about how I had a hernia. I wasn't that graphic, I

just talked about what it is, getting the anaesthetic and the

needle in the arm and two people passed out and one nearly had a

panic attack. I had done it 40 times and it hadn't been a problem, then

three in one night. Squeamish people. I don't know if I have two

give a health warning. This is your 20th year in stand-up. I guess she

would hope it lasted that long, but does it still felt like the early

stages -- you would hope? It is nice to be still going. I am one of the

only people who read the reviews. Not that they matter, but I do read

them. It is nice, people are generally saying it is getting

funnier, so it is nice that you are still improving. We may have some

new material for you, the viewers have been e-mailing in some gripes

they have found on getting into their 40s. Jenny from Somerset says

she cannot stand men walking around with their trousers... I thought you

are going to say you just can't stand men. I just want a yank their

trousers. It is a very easy way to get into a fight on the tube. That

whole fashion for your trousers around here, it comes from the fact

that in South Central, you weren't allowed to wear a belt in jail, so

this was a sign that you have been to jail, because you are used are

not wearing a belt and it is a badge of honour in gangland. But if you

are from Penge and you are walking around, you are not showing you have

been to jail, you are showing that your mother has done a bang up job

of getting the skid marks out of your underwear. We don't need to see

that. We will leave it there! We don't have time to any more. Can you

say skid marks on the one show? I should have asked. It is on the

edge! So as we heard, Ed is mining a rich seam of comedy from turning

40. According to the next film, you have to be over 35 to be in rock 'n'

roll. Allah dad was Davy Jones of the

Monkees, the cute English one -- our dad. He would kill me and saying

that. The little one. He plays the tambourine. Annabelle looks the most

like dad. They used to make fun of each other all the time. That would

always say to me, why are you so short and why are your teeth so big,

why is your nose so big? He was a child star. He worked in show

business from the age of eight until the day he died. His mother was

poorly, I think, for most of his childhood. She had problems with her

lungs. Dad's love of entertaining was born out of making his family

smile. I think you have got to be over 35 to be in rock 'n' roll these

days. In 1967, the Monkees sold twice as many albums as the Beatles

and the Rolling Stones put together. Last night in Washington, the mania

was back. In the 80s, they had this huge revival. I went from living in

a normal house in a normal street to living in a tour bus and travelling

around America. I was two years old and I was on the road every year

until I was 14 or 15. It was exciting, being a kid on tour,

living in a tour bus. Getting to have Chinese food for breakfast,

that kind of thing. I loved it. We would be in convoys. You have the

bus for the crew under the bus for the artist. My dad and Mickey and

Peter had their own buses and their own entourage. There aren't many

times that you can go to work with your dad. We would tour as a family,

which is fantastic. Then my parents divorced and we would have nannies

on the road. In the school holidays, we would go and meet dad and go back

to normal life. It was an adjustment. It was hard at school.

Most people went to Bjork and things and there was nothing normal about

what I had done -- to Chalker. I just couldn't communicate it, didn't

know how. What are you doing? We better get the saddle together. It

is fair to say my dad had two great passions. No-one was horses, and

number two entertaining. When I was growing up, three things dad taught

us. One was obviously knowing how to ride a horse. You have the know-how

to make a good egg sandwich. I can make a good egg sandwich. I would

eat them every day. Always hit the big diverse. I think he may be

forgot he had daughters. -- always hit the big guy first. Go at a

steady gallop. I am lucky enough to be left with a great gift, he taught

me how to ride and had to care for animals. My sister is a fantastic

singer and entertainer. He did want to help me. He used to

help me all the time and I rejected it and rejected it. He used to say

to me, why aren't you as famous and Miley Cyrus? I don't think he would

be saying that now, giving her recent exploits, which I think are

wonderful, by the way. Davy Jones, the British-born lead singer of the

Monkees has died, he was 66. I honestly felt like my dad would

never die, because he was so full of life. My dad's face was on the front

of every single newspaper and I looked at it and I thought, I wish

you could see this. Because he didn't know how significant that was

going to be to so many people and didn't realise that for so many

people, knowing that Davy Jones was dead was going to be a real... He

didn't realise how special he was. Thanks so much, it was a real

pleasure to meet him when he came on the show. You said earlier on that

since turning 40, you didn't mind playing the old air guitar.

Recently, a study led by Cambridge University...

ELECTRIC GUITAR RIFF. Showed that it could lead to real

musicians. We are going to be led out tonight by Wildthing37. I will

be back tomorrow with Chris and Ian McShane.

MUSIC: "Stepping Stone" by the Monkees.