26/11/2015 The One Show

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

guest tonight has been described as the greatest male dancer of his

generation, and his is a real ration to riches story. It began on the

streets of Havana, cube barks ballet school saved him from a life of

poverty and crime. By 16 he was winning international awards and was

soon dance ing with the finest companies, including the Bolshoi.

This month saw him leave the Royal Ballet after 17 years at the very

top of his game. APPLAUSE. Please welcome Carlos

Acosta! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE. Wow! Will

that do it, is that snuff? No, he gets 20-minute standing ovations,

that's the deal. APPLAUSE. Seriously, we haven't got

time for this! OK, fair enough. We've got a half-hour show to do.

We'll do it at the end. But it is true that that happened at the end

of your last performance at the Royal Ballet, you had a huge

standing ovation. Yes, it was great. It was very emotional, 17 years is

quite a long time for a ballet dancer. And 20 minutes is quite a

long time, to be fair, Carlos. Were you expecting that? No, I mean...

What did you do for 20 minutes? I would talk and then there were

pictures, and society prolonged the time. It wasn't just a straight 20

minutes. Oh right. As you mentioned, there you did make a speech to

inpyre the younger generation of ballet dancers, so this evening we

have got some young ballet dancers from the London Studio Centre. They

are all very excited to be here and to ask you questions later on.

Wonderful. And you've come from the training hall. We'll be talking

about that shortly, Carlos. Before that, the decision not to show a

Church of England advert in the UK's largest cinema chains hag making

headlines all week. But would cinema goers really be offended by the

Lord's Prayer. ? The One Show put that to the test. Our father in

Heaven... Hallowed by your name... The news that this advert with was

going to be banned in most mainstream cinemas in the UK as it

may cause offence has sparked a debate about religious censorship.

We live in a pro dominantly Christian country, so is it a case

of being oversensitive about other people's faiths? DCM state they have

a long-standing policy of not allowing political or religious

advertising, but today we are going to let the people decide. I've come

to a small independent cinema in North London to show the Church of

England's banned advert for the very first time on the big screen. Give

us this day... But I'm also going to show another advert for women's

lingerie. This was not only approved for cinematic release by DCM but

they gave it an award as the best cinema advertisement ever. I want to

know which they find more offensive and why. Which of those adverts did

you find more offensive? I find neither offensive. I don't like

either of them personally. It is strange that Kylie can ride around

on a bucking Bronco in her underwear and that not be banned whereas

something as simple as the Lord's Prayer has been banned because it

upsets a board of people. Did you find the lingerie advert offencive?

No. Would all the men in the audience stand up? It made you very

uncomfortable: Yeah, as a guy watching that it made me feel

uncomfortable. If it is forced upon you in a public place, it is like...

For thine the the kingdom, the power and the glory... The Church of

England advert was banned on the grounds that it may offend people of

other faiths. Is that the case? Difficult for me to put myself in

other faith's shoes, so I think what's offensive is that thing of

you must must believe in one thing, whether it is the Church of England

or whether it is another faith really. Maybe if you start

advertising the Church of England, would a whole lot of unappealing

churches feel they should have airtime too? I'm a Christian but I

wouldn't have a problem if it was pray from the perspective of Islam

or Judaism, or anything like that... Amen... Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. The

irony is that they polled it that it wouldn't cause controversy and

that's what it is creating. Let's talk about the sin marks Carlos. If

it wasn't for the Cuban cinema and your dad visiting it the chances are

you wouldn't be here now talking about the career you had. I miss my

dad. He died a few years back. He went into a movie theatre, where he

is from, and he was, it was a movie for white people. He managed to

sneak in and see this wonderful movie, a dancing movie. That's where

the whole image stays with him. He decided eventually that the youngest

of his 11 kids would be a ballet dancer. He pushed me into that

direction against my will. Right at the beginning is it true that you

weren't that keen on the idea and didn't really find it that

pleasurable? I hated ballet. Did you? I really hated it, because I

wanted to be a footballer. Then I moved into wanting to become Michael

Jackson, but I felt so comfortable practising the moonwalk and all

these movements, but ballet, when you start studying ballet it is very

tire which and with this piano music. For a nine-year-old kid, that

was very boring. When did it turn around? What was the key to you

loving it? I saw the National Ballet of Cuba for the first time. I saw

the professionals leaping and the way they were built and the way they

held themselves. I saw the athletic part of ballet and I said wow, this

is amazing. From the first time there was no turning back. And then

you went on to have an incredible career, 26 years on the stage. Do

you still, because you've played on some of the most beautiful stages in

the world, but do you still fell a connection to Cuba? Cuba is wherever

I am. I have it in my heart. And in fact all I want to do with my

foundation is to give back to my country. It is an island, it is lice

lated. I'm trying to make this bridge between Cuba and the world

and trying to bring artists into the island. Cuba is very special to me.

And I guess with 10 brothers and sisters it is hard not to feel that

connection. My word! You've seen we've got a lot of young ballet

dancers here. A lot of those that you were addressing the information

and the advice for the future towards in that farewell speech.

They've got some questions for you. Shall we start with Sarah? At 42,

how hard is it for you to keep yourself in top condition? It is

harder than before, because when you are younger you are made of clay,

meaning that I didn't even know what ice was. I could jump and jump, but

now I do that and two days later I'm still suffering from it. You have to

push your body even more to deliver that kind of quality at this stage.

It is true every day we are losing facultities. You have to keep the

body in top condition. I think you've got a few more years yet,

Sarah. Let's go to. What do you think about when you are dancing? A

wonderful connection to my audience, to surprise them, to try to connect

in many layers. I feel joy and freedom. I think it is great. I also

like challenges. In fact there were a lot of roles that on paper I was

not suited. I could do the Hunter and Corsair, turn myself into a

Prince or to be Romeo. How is a Prince supposed to behave? I had no

clue, so it took me a long time and it was a long process to try to

bring my Prince forward. But I liked that challenge. Jo, your question.

This is before you go on stage isn't it? I wonder if you have any rituals

that you do in the wings before you go on? No rituals, just enjoy. Warm

up your body, be focused and just understand that we really, really,

how do you say? Feel the music. Anyway, what we do is just

wonderful. It is for everybody's pleasure. In itself it is just a

beautiful thing. OK. And you have officially retired but you have got

a farewell tour starting on 8th December. What can people expect

from that and will bit the final hurrah? No, it will be, actually

what I'm doing is transitioning. I've been so far a classical wallet

dancer. Slowly stopping. This performance that I do in a week's

time in the Coliseum, it gives the chance for the audience to see me

dance the classical roles again. But slowly I will transition into more

contemporary areas. And the moonwalk, you could go back to that.

Maybe. I think the farewell tour he's going to take two days off

after the performance. There's a whole episode dedicated to Carlos on

8th December on BBC One, called A Classic Farewell. For generations

men and women have argued which is harder, going out to work to put

bread on the table or staying at home to look after the children. We

sent Jo to join one dad on his very first day left holding a baby. It is

Monday morning in the James household and mine month old baby

Nylah is enjoying quality time with mum Katie. But it is a big day for

Katie. Today she's handing over had reins to her partner Tom as he

becomes a full-time daddy and she heads back to work. I've been off

for nine months. Tom's been off with me for two months. This is his first

day solo. Should be good. I'm looking forward to going back to

work. A good time. I'm ready to go back. Tom's taking advantage of new

rules which mean instead of feting just two weeks paid paternity lead

dads can split up to 50 weeks leave with their partner. Hello. Tom, how

is it going? Good, mate. Seven months on from the changes just 2%

of new dads have used them, possibly because statutory pay for parenting

stops after nine weeks, Tom's leave is unpaid. How are you feeling?

Pretty good. I suppose a few nerves around making sure she doesn't miss

mum too much, but I think we'll be OK. Quite a cost though. How are you

going to cope financially? It is not easy to go down to one or no income.

It is challenging. At the start of day one Tom's confident he can cope.

I fancy myself in the househusband stakes. I say that but it might be

that she comes home to a war zone, of dribble bibs and Eritreas strewn

everywhere. I think in some ways he'll be a bit surprised how tough

it can be. He's got his own mind and he's a really good dad. Good luck I

say. With Katie off to work, her daddy daycare starts in earnest.

Let's go. Are you the only person you know of who is doing this? I am,

yes. I've been surprised how few of the dads I've spoken to are aware it

is something they can do. It is a fairly recent law, but there still

seems to be a lot of ignorance about the rights that you have as a

father. And in this family the new law is just catching up with

something they've long seen as natural. What do you make of Tom and

Katie sharing this paternitial leave? I was delighted when I heard

what they were going to do. When Katie was three months old I put her

in a backpack and took her to Paris, where I was working as a painter and

decorator. She came with me. It was part of what we did, sharing the

care. Katie feels that the father of her child can do absolutely what she

does, so there's a strong sense of equality. Hello. Who is that? Mummy!

While she may not have noticed the change, after her first day back at

work, it is fair to say that mum's missed her. We asked Tom to keep a

video diary of the first two weeks of his time as a stay at home dad,

recording the highs and the lows. Nappy has been changed, she might be

tired. Maybe she's missing mum. We are getting into a morning routine

where we have a little bit of a lie-in once mummy's gone off to

work. Today we are off to our first playgroup together, which is a

chance for her to make some friends, and maybe for me to make friends.

She woke up at silly oh clock and went back to sleep alright, but I

didn't. I did pretty much everything I planned on doing, it went out of

the window. She was a bit grizzly and it rained on us. And yeah, she

properly knackered me out today. When she starts getting a bit more

mobile, I'll need eyes in the back of my head but, at the moment, it's

brilliant. It's wonderful with her. Thom and Katie join us now. But

having a night off. Normally when we get people on television, they bury

their heads in their hands, but you were just, putting your emotions for

your daughter on the screen, it was lovely. How have you been finding

it, Thom? It's been good. Getting my head round the routine has been a

challenge, but I'm getting there now. I don't have as much spare time

up my sleeve as I thought. Is that the biggest surprise? I knew it

would be full-time but there is no letup, even when she is asleep. You

are tidying up after herself -- yourself and her, getting the meals

ready. But I'm loving it. How do you feel, now you are back at work,

Katie? Do you feel you have made the right decision or are you got it to

leave in the morning? I think I was ready to go back to work and it is

lovely coming home to see they have had a great day, laughing and

giggling. This is their time. I had my time. It's awesome. And you've

got a cook and a cleaner. I know! The food you must have two bridges

just for the cat! -- the food you must have two bridges. Can you

imagine this happening in Cuba? Would your dad have stayed at home?

My dad stay at home... Well... Anyway, 11 kids... Very hard. Oh,

it's a tricky one. We are not pushing Nyla in any direction

whatsoever, but Carlos has brought a present. There you are. Thank you.

All signed. Thank you! As a stay at home dad, doing the domestic staff,

we know you will be well into your washing machines and ironing boards,

so we are crossing over to Watchdog now. Let's have a look at what they

are up to. They are just preparing for the programme. Chris, Michelle

and Matt, tell us what you have got on. Tonight, we look at the illegal

trade in puppies. It is reckoned that tens of thousands of dogs are

being prepared ready to be imported into the UK in time for Christmas

and we ask the government what they are doing to try and stop that cruel

and barbaric trade. Last week, we were talking about remote-controlled

drones falling out of the sky. This week, a family got in touch to tell

us that their 18-month-old child has suffered life changing injuries

because a drone hit him in their garden. Plus everybody is talking

about Black Friday, racing to the shops. But are you really getting a

bargain? Or is it just a blag? Is it blag Friday? 7:30pm, BBC One. Soon,

we will be meeting the British writer whose script for Steven

Spielberg's latest film deals with espionage and injustice in 1950s

America but, before that, here is down with a historic tale of

injustice from much closer to home. At 6am one morning in the autumn of

1916, during the horror of the Battle of the Somme, a tragedy of a

different kind was unfolding behind British lines. Private Harry Farr

was gunned down in a hail of bullets leaving behind a young wife and a 1

-year-old daughter. Unlike hundreds of thousands of other British

soldiers on the Western front, those bullets didn't come from German

rifles but British ones. Harry Farr was a steelworker from north

Kensington. He enlisted in the Army reservists in 1908, aged just 17. By

1916, he had fought bravely and was known to be a soldier of good

character, so how did he end up in front of a British firing squad?

Julian Bukowski, a military historian, was one of the first to

study what happened to Harry. There was an attack coming up and he was

ordered to go forward with the rest of the party. His nerves failed him

and he said he couldn't go. The Sergeant said, you've got to go. He

said, I can't face it. A witness said he was trembling and not in a

good state. Like thousands of other soldiers, Harry was displaying

classic signs of shellshock and not for the first time. You read about

officers getting sent back to nice hospitals in the UK. Why didn't that

happen about him? He is a working-class labourer in a society

where class counts for everything. He was just a man, a number. Was he

arrested? He faced a court martial. He didn't have a defending officer

so he was defending himself and they didn't consider his medical

evidence. He stood no chance. That is not a legal system. No, but court

martial is odd about justice but about discipline. -- court-martial

is not. On the 18th of October in north-east France by the light of

dawn, a priest read out a final prayer. What happened next

demonstrated that Harry Farr was no coward. Like many other brave

soldiers shot for apparent cowardice, he refused to wear a

blindfold. According to the chaplain standing next to him, Farr wanted to

look into the eyes of the firing squad, stared down the barrels of

the rifles that would kill him. That order to execute Harry Farr

would echo down through the years of his family. Janet who is Harry's

granddaughter. How did your grandmother react? She didn't tell

anyone. It was such a stigma and a shame for somebody a member of the

family, to be executed. Wives of those executed were not entitled to

a widow's pension at the time. Janet's grandmother and her mother

were left poverty stricken. I was visiting my grandmother and doing

the family tree. I thought I would look up his grave. She said, well he

hasn't got one because he was executed. When you found out, did

you feel ashamed or angry? I wasn't ashamed, I was angry because I felt

and injustice had been done. After discovering the secret, Janet

campaigned for 15 years to have her grandfather pardoned. Private Harry

Farr is to be granted a posthumous pardon... The British government

granted a pardon to him and the other 305 men executed during the

conflict. People say you can't rewrite history, but we did, didn't

we, in the end. I was very proud that I was able, for my grandmother,

to get his name cleared. What a sobering story. We are joined

by somebody else who has rewritten history although, in this case, he

turned it into a movie. Please welcome mat Charlie. Great to see

you. You have penned the new Spielberg Cold War thriller. Yes, I

am slightly pinching myself. It is called Bridge of Spies and it is

based on a true story, never told before. How did you uncover writ? I

found it as a footnote in a history book, a biography of JFK. A section

of it talked about the Bay of pigs and, after that catastrophe, JFK

wanted to get back the 1500 servicemen who had been caught and

captured. He negotiated with Fidel Castro using a lawyer. In this book,

there was a footnote saying, James Donovan came to prominence for the

part he played in a spy swap previously between a Russian and an

American. I was reading and thinking, who is this guy? Never

heard of him and yet he played a part in two massive moments in

history. I started to try and find out who he was. I put lots of pieces

of the jigsaw together but what was amazing for me and emotional was

meeting his son in New York. He talks about his father and the fact

that his dad did this remarkable thing but had never really had his

moment. I said to him, I will do my best to tell the story. That is

where it started. You pitch it to Spielberg and he picked it up and

Tom Hanks is in it, mark Rylands. We are going to look at the clip and

then we will talk more. I don't work for the government. I am here to

offer my services as your legal counsel. If you accept them as such,

I am with you. If I accept you? Are you good at what you do? Yeah, yeah,

pretty good. Have you represented many accused spies? No, not yet. Tom

Hanks playing James Donovan, representing a Soviet spy. Tell us

how the story develops, because it is more than just giving a fair

trial. I don't want to give too much away, and it is strange to see

that, watching those guys doing this, but it is a story about a man

who takes an unpopular caisson, defending a Russian spy, and he will

not even though he totally disagrees in everything he stands for and

believes, he won't stop defending him. He just pushes it from New York

to the Supreme Court and eventually to the Berlin Wall. He gets tasked

by the CIA to negotiate a spy swap for the Russian he defended for Gary

Powers, who was shot down. He was a man who you could live next door to,

which is why Tom Hanks is so great. He takes our hand and takes us

through the story. You said it gives you goose bumps hearing those

brilliant actors speaking your script. Listen to this, the first

time Stephen Spielberg rang you, is it right that you were in pants? On

purpose? I was. Waiting for the call! I got very hot and bothered

because I had posters of his wall since I was a kid. I knew he was

going to call because I was told he was going to ring. Suddenly, I got

really hot and bothered so I took off my shirt then I thought, I'm

still hot, so you end up in your boxers and your T-shirt. Why not! My

wife stuck her head in and said, I'll leave you to it! How did that

conversation go? It was amazing but it was strange it was these

conference calls with the state and with Hollywood, I was talking to

Stephen Spielberg and there were four or five other people on the

line and, halfway through, there was silence and I thought, maybe he's

hung up, maybe he's bored. I said, can I check you are still there,

Stephen? He said, I'm rapt, I love it. I got to the end, and he said,

when can I write this? Who is your hero? I have many heroes, Mandela.

In the movie business or in general? Have you ever had a moment where you

think, the moment I have admired for all these years is actually in front

of me? Know but, as a matter of fact, one of my heroes was Michael

Jackson, and I had tickets to go and see him at the O2 arena before he

passed away. That was a moment I was looking forward to, but he died.

Carlos is basically people's Stephen Spielberg anyway. He is Matt's

Stephen Spielberg! Congratulations and I'm sure everybody who goes to

see it will love it. That's all we got time for. Thank you to Carlos

Acosta, whose farewell tour begins next month. And farewell to Matt,

Bridge of Spies is in cinemas a week today. I will be back tomorrow with

Russell Howard. See you then.