Episode 2 Oxford Street Revealed

It's the most famous shopping street in the world,

in the heart of Britain's capital city.

A mile and a half long,

with 30 million visitors each year.

With some of the world's most famous shops...

WHOOPING ..biggest stars...

-Kate Moss!

-CHEERING

..and busiest stations.

Sorry, guys! Stand back for me.

What does it take to keep it running 24 hours a day...

Busiest street in the world, so it needs constant attention.

-..seven days a week?

-Oi! Clear off!

You're going to be arrested on suspicion of attempted theft.

Are you ready, London?

A street that never sleeps.

This sort of thing wouldn't happen anywhere else.

Oxford Street.

-Coming up...

-Back to the pavement!

..anarchy in the bus queue.

No getting on the bus!

-SHOUTING

-Get off the bus!

A Tube strike brings chaos to Oxford Street.

It's getting out of hand. More units, please.

It's all change at John Lewis and with the press launch imminent,

the nerves are kicking in. HE INHALES SHARPLY

I'd sooner be in my workshop.

I'm not very used to these sorts of things.

And ice, ice, baby -

London's coolest bar gets a refit.

It's more power and muscles than brain.

To keep Oxford Street as one of the top places to shop in Europe,

the retailers have invested in a team of these,

welcome ambassadors.

They act as walking information points for visitors

and try and deal with anything that might disrupt a shopper's experience.

-It's this way?

-That turning there, that's Argyle Street.

And tonight, ambassador Michael is expecting to be busy.

There's a Tube strike on,

bringing London's key transport network to a halt for 48 hours.

It means hundreds of thousands of Oxford Street visitors

and commuters are having to find alternative means of transport home.

The major strain is expected to be taken by the buses,

but with the roads already busier than usual with cars,

cabs and cyclists, it's not going to be easy.

Six, seven buses in a row that are completely packed out.

Even the doors don't shut, look at that.

And as he patrols, the scale of the problem becomes all too clear.

This bus stop serves two key bus routes,

which call at many locations normally served by the Tube.

Crowds here have been getting steadily worse

since rush hour started.

People are trying to get on buses,

but they're too busy for them to get on.

People are waiting for half an hour, up to an hour,

just to get on the bus that they want.

This bus was full to bursting at the previous stop

and the police have been called to try and manage

-people getting on and off.

-Hold on, hold on. Oi!

Stop pushing!

CROWD SHOUT OUT

What's that about? He tried to bump the queue.

Michael and the police have their work cut out.

Out!

All move back.

If you're this side of the tape, you should be at the back of the queue.

One person goes past me at a time, right? One person at a time.

Slowly, slowly. Respect for people, mate.

You're not standing here. Back to the queue.

Guys, if you push me again, I'm shutting the doors!

Back to the queue.

There's a steady stream of buses,

but despite the police getting as many people on board as possible,

they hardly make a dent in the crowd numbers.

At 7.30pm, the police sergeant in charge

asks Michael and his team to separate the queue into smaller ones

for different bus routes to help ease the crowd congestion.

If you're looking for the 25, please line up here on the back.

You need to go to that side of the line.

We're not going to let you guys on

unless you're on this line, all right?

But half an hour later,

just as he's succeeded in separating the crowds into two queues,

the police change their mind and ask him to put it back the way it was.

We'll just have to make it one big queue.

Michael has to inform the passengers

they now need to go to the back of the other queue.

They're not happy.

Those people were there, because that's where the bus starts.

-You've asked us...

-Madam...

-What did you say to us?

-I'm just doing what I've been told.

I didn't know what routes are going where. I've just been told...

-55 is there...

-Yeah.

-..25 is here and 25 is there.

-Yeah...

-So you guys don't know what you're doing,

you don't know how you're helping us now,

you shouldn't have told us what to do at the beginning.

I do apologise. If I was in your situation, I'd be like that as well.

All we're trying to do is help.

With more commuters arriving every minute,

the buses that do pull up simply can't cope.

With the queues and jostling increasing,

things threaten to get out of hand.

What are you doing?

No, you're not pushing in.

He was right down there, he was right down there.

We let the lady through, cos she's got a child.

You told me you were with the lady.

You lied to me.

THEY REMONSTRATE ANGRILY

-Don't touch me! Don't touch me!

-There's children!

It's getting out of hand. More units, please.

Later, bus crushes...

Get back on the pavement!

..and bike crashes...

BRAKES SCREECH

Are you OK?

They don't actually look where they are going.

..as things at the Tube strike go from bad to worse.

No pushing, no shoving!

Get back!

There are four giant department stores on Oxford Street

and each one invests millions in their displays and layouts

to help them stand out from the crowd.

It's early evening and John Lewis Oxford Street

is about to play its part.

It's ringing the changes in its homeware department.

The store are working on a cutting-edge new design,

the centrepiece of which will turn the third floor of the building

into a house within the shop.

It's very exciting. The plans look absolutely great,

the whole concept is going to be brand-new with brand-new fixturing

and, really, being the flagship branch, it is just what we need

for our home assortment.

The house within the store will be made up of four rooms,

each one taken over by a different designer

and kitted out with their goods.

One of those rooms is busy taking shape,

300 miles away in deepest Cornwall.

John Lewis has asked furniture maker Tom Raffield

to design one of the four new rooms.

His brief from the store is to create his perfect space.

We are going to be given one of the rooms in the house,

so that's our room there, it's a rectangular room.

It's a very open brief, so yeah, I'd better sort of read it all properly

and get my head around it, cos at the moment it's all quite vague.

Tom's made his name reinventing an ancient form of woodwork

at his workshop in Nanskerris.

Tom steams wood to bend it to make furniture and furnishings.

His technique involves subjecting planks of wood to hot steam.

Each plank is steamed for an hour.

Once out, it will begin to harden in just 60 seconds,

so they need to shape it quickly.

They can't afford any mistakes.

Oh! Oopsie.

-Precious seconds.

-Yeah.

With the wood clamped into place,

the team can begin bending it round the mould.

Too little pressure and the wood will cool before it's set into position.

Too much and the wood will snap.

LOUD CREAKING

I always think of it as torturing the wood,

because I feel like that's what we're doing.

Not for the faint-hearted.

You actually get adrenaline just flowing through your body

-as you're bending the wood.

-Or anxiety!

-Yeah!

Tom's found inspiration for his John Lewis room close to home -

a walk in his woods.

Being here makes me think that it would be so nice

to take a bit of this woodland, and the workshop, but the woodland

to the John Lewis room, because this is where it all started for me.

Oh, hi, Sian, how are you doing?

When do you need to see some sketches?

So probably, yeah, two days.

This is a handmade product. I think perhaps we're such a small business,

so I'm nervous, I suppose anxious

whether it all comes together in time,

cos time's going to be very tight.

Later, Cornwall comes to Oxford Street

as Tom gets to grips with his new room.

But how will it go down with the press?

A bad review would be...

Yeah, it would be awful.

Nestled between Oxford Street and Regent Street is the Icebar,

the only hostelry in London where the entire bar is made of ice.

It's an establishment so cool,

guests are given special clothing

and have to leave after 40 minutes to avoid frostbite.

But unlike wood or steel,

regular wear and tear causes the ice to melt,

so once a year, bar manager Matthieu Bourgogne redesigns

and rebuilds the bar with fresh ice.

And it's that time of year already.

He's shutting the bar for a week to carry out the work,

which must be completed in time for the grand reopening,

to which he's already booked VIP guests.

Over 1,000 booked. That's a lot of people booked in,

that's a lot of people disappointed if we were to be late

and it's a lot of revenue lost.

The pressure is on, there's no doubt about it.

To get things started, at 7am Monday morning,

a crew of Swedish ice engineers have turned up

to begin dismantling the old bar.

This part of the job is more...

..power and muscles than brain.

Jens Ivarsson and his team know their ice.

They built an 80-room hotel entirely from the stuff

in their home town of Jukkasjarvi in northern Sweden

and have since designed and built ice bars around the world.

It's a job few people in the world can do.

They are just a different breed.

They work in here all day with chainsaws.

Moving blocks of ice, it's heavy, hard work.

40 tonnes of ice out, 40 tonnes of ice in,

and make it into a beautiful thing,

a working bar that is also a work of art.

The Swedes are ice pros, but it's a local refrigerated truck firm

that has the job of transporting the ice away.

It's not their usual cargo

and it's proving to be a challenge.

What are you doing?!

It's just too steep for the pump truck to go up with it on.

Heads up!

It's like being hit by a small car.

If you get the tonne of ice over you, you will die.

After six hours of chainsawing,

the bar is an empty shell,

but the tail lift technique is yet to be perfected.

I said before you come off the end!

It's on!

HE GROANS

Now we have about five days, more or less, to build a new one.

The next morning, the team is back

and waiting for a delivery of very special ice.

That's my home village.

548 people living there.

This is the river that we use in here, building the ice.

It has the perfect speed to create clear ice

and also thick ice,

so it's all about the speed of the water

and Jukkasjarvi, we have the perfect speed for it.

Jens reckons his ice is the best in the world,

but it isn't here.

The ice hasn't arrived yet, so, er...

-we're wondering where it is.

-No, it's not a good start at all.

We go have breakfast.

Last year, the bar was frozen fruit-themed.

This year is its tenth anniversary and the theme is rock and roll.

The bar, for example, has all these studs.

That's, for me, very rock icon.

Here in this corner you have the drum kit.

Jens is proud of his town's top export.

From the Torne River.

It's definitely the most beautiful and best ice in the world.

Not everyone understands Torne River ice like Jens.

The delivery has finally arrived an hour and a half late,

but it's too cold.

These guys, they don't know that we...

They put the temperature down to minus 25, something...

..cos they want to make sure that it's cold,

and we do not want that.

At that temperature, it's too fragile and could easily crack when carved.

-Turn it off.

-Yeah?

Despite being late, even now, they can't start building.

It's very cold, it's very fragile right now.

After letting it rest

at the more manageable minus five degrees at the bar,

the team are finally ready to start building.

Like a puzzle or building with Lego, you just build it up piece by piece.

Over the next five days,

the team work ten hours daily to get the bar together.

By Friday morning, the team are back on track,

but then, disaster strikes.

The bar is basically a huge freezer and it's broken down.

Quite a significant leak coming from the ceiling,

straight on to our brand-new ice.

Later, can the team stop the leak

and build their bar in time for the grand reopening?

Yeah, this is bad.

Hours after it started, the Tube strike is still causing chaos

along the length of Oxford Street. CROWD SHOUT

Welcome ambassador Michael is trying to deal with a fraught situation

at a bus stop.

You guys don't know what you're doing.

You shouldn't have told us what to do at the beginning.

Oxford Street is one of the only shopping streets in the country

to have its own dedicated security team.

And at the west end of the street,

Lewis and Ian from the team are on patrol.

Here observing anyone wandering into the road.

There's scope for them to be hit by vehicles.

Just keeping a general eye on the public,

make sure everyone's OK, really.

Lewis has barely started his day's work

when the busier than usual roads begin to throw up issues

for him to deal with too.

Yeah, received, we'll make our way up there, over.

A little boy on holiday with his family

has been hit and hurt by a cyclist.

Hello, mate!

Have you hurt your hand?

-BOY WAILS

-Your head?

-Have you phoned for an ambulance?

-Yes.

OK. How long ago?

-Do you speak...?

-30 minutes.

-30 minutes ago?

-Yes.

-Can you put this through as a 999 call?

Say he's four years old, been hit by a cyclist,

got a massive lump on his head, erm, pretty distressed.

SIREN WAILS

-Are you for the little lad?

-Yeah.

-These guys here will help you out.

-BOY WAILS LOUDLY

SIREN BLURTS

Lewis is still dealing with the family when across the road...

-BRAKES SCREECH, CRASHING

-Are you all right, fella?

..a bike's hit a bus.

-Are you OK?

-Are you all right?

Yeah?

Swerving to avoid a U-turning taxi,

the cyclist has hit the side of a bus.

The team help the man off the road.

Can you move your arm, yeah? Can you do that?

I just came out to do a U-turn, and the bus was giving me way,

and this cyclist tried to swerve me,

hit me, and went into the bus.

It was quite shocking.

They don't actually look where they are going, that is the problem.

Yeah, I'm amazed he didn't end up

underneath that bus, to be honest. Very lucky.

Well, it shocks you, really,

but that's working on Oxford Street, isn't it?

The bus, taxi and cyclist are sent on their way,

but back at the John Lewis queue, people aren't getting away so fast.

It's now 8.30pm, and the arrival of each new bus brings with it

more pushing and queue jumping.

I can see you pushing. Don't push. Don't push.

I've seen you push. Don't push.

No, I'm here. Ask anybody.

Guys, stop pushing. Calm down.

-One at a time!

-I'm waiting this side.

You're on the wrong side of the thing, sir.

I'll wait where I want. That man was pushing me. What?

I hate this. Abusing the people.

-They are not criminals.

-No.

We pay for our transport. This is ridiculous.

Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa!

Small babies at the front here. Do not push.

Aware of the crush, the police have sent specialist officers

from the Safer Transport Police Team to deal with the flashpoint bus stop.

We're getting there, slowly.

Having come in for flak themselves,

Michael and his team decide they've done as much as they can.

They leave it to the professionals.

-Will you guys still be here?

-Oh, no, you can go.

-Is that all right?

-Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much.

-Thanks, man. Cheers.

Police urge the crowd to behave calmly.

When the bus arrives, which will be very soon, it only holds

so many people, and there is one door.

If you push, if you scream and you shout,

you will not get on any quicker.

By 9pm, several hundred people are still waiting to get on.

You can see we're here long. We need to get on this one.

Very, very terrible.

We have been waiting more than three hours now.

For some people, it's all become too much.

One at a time, stop pushing.

No pushing, no shoving at the back.

Act like adults and get back.

When the next bus arrives, people take matters into their own hands.

Guys, no getting on the bus...

Get off the bus.

No getting on the bus.

You're all adults over here, start acting like adults!

Don't start. Who says who gets on the bus? It's not you.

You are disorganised. You don't know how to do your job.

People are getting on the back of the bus. The bus is at the front.

The entrance to the bus is at the front.

Guys, listen very carefully!

This bus will not move unless you get back on the pavement.

I will send them empty.

In London, this is what a crush is like.

I am tired and hungry and angry.

Them police are making noise, telling you, "Wait, wait, wait."

What can I do, innit?

Later, as day becomes night, the wait for a bus goes on,

and on, and on.

If you're pushing again, you're not going to get on a bus today, sir.

John Lewis Oxford Street has invested hundreds of thousands of pounds

in a brand-new homewares department.

They've ripped out the old fittings and are replacing them

with an ambitious new design.

They've asked four of their suppliers to each design a room

to form a house within the store,

and on a crisp Saturday morning, Cornish wood-bender Tom Raffield

and his wife and business partner Dani

arrive on Oxford Street to put the finishing touches to their room.

We're really, really anxious to go and have a look at this room.

We've put so much work into it.

Well, it's the culmination of probably, like,

three or four weeks' solid work.

The shop's team have built the basic structure of Tom's design

but he's now got two days to adapt and fit the rest of his plan.

The hoarding separates the shopping public from

the closely guarded new rooms.

In two days' time,

it'll be removed for the official launch of the new department.

We could see our space from a million miles away,

-because this is all the wood that we've sent up from Cornwall.

-Yeah.

-It's quite nice to see it's up on the walls already.

-It looks good.

-We've got to do quite a bit now, haven't we?

-Yeah.

-So we should get to work.

-Get cracking.

-Yeah, cool.

They get busy with it.

DRILL BUZZES

Just very slightly to your right.

That's it. That's it. You got it?

The room and decorations are designed to show off Tom's lampshades,

which are the main items he sells through John Lewis.

While Tom's busy with his room,

overseeing the rest of the project is head of design Diane Staplehurst.

It's all about the attention to detail.

It just shows that you care about it, I think,

and I do like things quite, sort of, orderly and straight.

Do you think I've got OCD, Matt?

-No.

-I haven't, have I?

She's coordinated the designs and designers of all four rooms.

This is, to me, more of an art installation.

But the real test for Diane will be tomorrow, when the cream of Britain's

homeware journalists get their first look at her new department.

Right, let's go.

And next morning, as the team gets ready for the press,

final preparations are being made to the new features.

All the glitches that we were panicking about yesterday

are all sorted, and I'm working on adrenaline at the moment.

Overseeing the press launch is PR manager Sian Jones.

We've worked up until the wire in terms of creating the best

environment possible for the press to arrive in,

so it's just up to us now to really garner

the coverage around what's been an incredible refurb.

Upstairs, the designers are giving their displays the final once-over.

Yeah, they're all looking good.

Some of these ones here need tightening.

I'm nervous, I suppose, cos I don't know who's going to come,

and what their response will be

cos it's very different to everything out there.

I think I'd probably sooner be in my workshop.

I'm not very used to these sorts of things.

With that, and the exhibition in full swing,

Sian can get ready for the toughest challenge of the lot.

-Hi, Isobel.

-Yes! I'm alive!

-Ta-da! Ta-da!

-Hello.

Isobel McKenzie-Price,

editorial director of Ideal Home magazine, is in the store.

Her magazine is a key publication for the store's target market,

and they're desperate for their new department to get a good review.

We are always conscious that everything new,

everything that we're doing, needs to get her approval,

and then hopefully the public's.

it would be fairly horrible to get a bad review.

So, here are our creative spaces.

Tom, this is Isobel.

OK, so, the brief really was to create your perfect space,

-wasn't it, Tom?

-Yeah, that's right.

No, it was brilliant, actually, cos we were given an open brief,

and we just wanted to, really,

not show how the lights could look in a really nice setting,

but just bring a piece of where they're made,

and who they're made by,

and sort of what inspires the creations, to John Lewis.

But is it enough to impress the hardest woman in homeware?

I'm amazed you could do this in the middle of Oxford Street...

-I know, so am I. Yeah.

-..so well.

It's fantastic.

'I think she's been wowed, actually,'

which I'm delighted by.

I fell in love with Tom Raffield's Log cabin. I just...

It was like walking into his workshop, and to be able to

do that into a tiny, sort of, 12 foot square space is amazing.

It's been a long journey from Cornwall to the premier

shopping street in Europe,

and for Tom, it's been quite an eye-opener.

Quite an overwhelming morning, really,

but I'm really glad that I've done it.

And John Lewis can cut the red ribbon to successfully open

their new homeware department. CHEERING

It's Saturday morning at the Icebar,

and the build is in full swing.

Jens and his team have been delayed by a series of leaks,

and there's a lot of time to make up before the bar opens later today.

The leaking has continued and, at the moment,

it's eating away at the ice.

The drip tray is full of water again so I don't know what the deal is.

-There has to be a blockage somewhere.

-It's not good at all

that it drips, because the water that drips is a little warm as well.

If it continues, then it will kind of dig a hole in the ice.

Yeah, this is bad.

The bar has to last a year.

All the ice team's work will be wasted if their design melts away.

Mathieu has called a plumber, but he doesn't have long to fix the problem.

There's water on both sides.

I can stick my finger down there. There's no ice there, yeah.

-It's got to be a blockage.

-It's got to be a blockage down the line.

Despite the leak, the team continue around the plumber,

fixing what damage they can.

They can use tap water as glue to mend breakages.

It's instant glue.

New tip. As good as new.

I've got a feeling the trace heating round the pipe,

that keeps the pipe from freezing up, it's not working.

Eventually, the plumber discovers what the source of the problem is.

A flick of the switch and the pipe heating comes back to life.

The coolant system unblocks and the leaks stops.

It was quite a simple fix once we discovered what the problem was.

Inside, Jens can make the final repair

to the ice immediately below the leak.

I will make the final cut...

for the last time.

And with that, the bar is ready,

just in the nick of time.

The Icehotel crew have built probably the best Icebar

-we've had in ten years.

-I can't believe it, really.

THEY CHEER

Fantastic. Happy ten years.

Hours later, the Icebar can show off Jens's new design

and all his team's hard work to the new season's first guests.

Really cold. I don't know how they do it

but they must love living in thermal underwear, is all I can say!

I'm glad to be outside, cos it's a lot warmer,

even though I'm from t'north.

But it were a good laugh. I'd recommend it to anyone.

And so, the coolest bar in London, literally, can open for business.

On a side street by John Lewis,

thousands of frustrated commuters have been queueing from early evening

to try and get their buses home in the face of a major Tube strike.

We're waiting for two, three hours

and we haven't even got into the bus yet.

A thin blue line of police and Oxford Street welcome ambassadors

have been trying to marshal the queues,

but it's not gone well.

SHOUTING

You're all adults here! No getting on to the bus!

As darkness falls,

by 9.30pm,

a workable system seems to have emerged.

Oh, thank you! Goodbye!

But some people are still trying to jump the queues.

Get him out the bus. Get him off the bus.

Get the driver to open the back door. He's pushed in.

Come off the bus, please. Come off the bus.

Sir, you have only been here for 15 minutes.

You've pushed in the queue approximately four times

when I very kindly asked you...

Shall we move out the way, sir?

The police keep going, helping dozens more passengers get their buses,

and finally, just after midnight, the queues begin to die down.

It's been a really long day. Long day.

Tempers flaring. Not ours!

But I think we've done as best as we can, really.

I'm hungry, I haven't had any dinner, so I'm going to go have

dinner, try and make my way home on two or three night buses myself,

hopefully not crowded. So that's the end of it, really.

They head off. Thankfully, by the morning,

the Tubes will be running again.