Greg James answers all your Escape Room questions

How long did it take to set up? Who were the masterminds behind it? Your questions answered.

In case you've been avoiding the Internet, here's a brief summary of the madness that took place on Monday and Tuesday at Radio 1.

Greg James, instead of doing his usual Breakfast show, was whisked off from BBC HQ on Monday morning and taken to a mysterious Escape Room. 30 hours and a gigantic guessing game later, he was out, all thanks to the help of Radio 1 listeners.

At around 1.50pm on Tuesday, Greg finally keyed in the correct code to the Escape Room (approximately his 50th attempt).

But as soon as he was free, back home and in a much-needed bath, loads of you still had tons of questions. How did he actually escape? What did all of the clues mean? What was the point of it all?

Thankfully, Greg James, his producers (the masterminds behind this scheme) and Claudia (the Star Listener who helped crack the code) have answered all your questions:

Was it a fix?

Greg: "The simple answer is no. Only four people knew the final code. One of them was a man called James, who programmed the box. We mentioned briefly that the code was actually hardwired. So if I put it in at any time and got it right, the door would have opened. It’s not a thing someone could just change. So he locked the final code in on Friday last week, and then went on leave. There was no way to override it."

Who set the puzzle?

Greg: "Radio 1 producers spent two months working it out. They got the people who write the clues for Only Connect to check that it was hard enough."

Only star listener Claudia got sent the Ainsley Harriott cookbook. Does that mean only she could finish the puzzle?

Greg: "No, because anyone with a copy of Ainsley’s cookbook could have worked it out. The answer was six ingredients on page 104, starting with the 4 slices of bread that I had posted into the room as a clue. In the half hour before Claudia opened the book on her doorstep, people started tweeting pictures of the page on the book, and were very close to working it out."

Did Greg and his listener do well? Were we all supposed to work it out faster?

Greg: "The captors forecast that it would be finished at 5.30pm on Tuesday. So, all of us together – we beat them. The captors thought it would take four hours to do the jigsaw, but I managed to do it in about three. I actually got very lucky with that puzzle, because I managed to get Ricky Hatton’s face first, and I worked out what that meant. The only reason I did that, was because I thought it was a gammon. There were lots of little pink bits of puzzle."

Where was the Escape Room?

Greg: "A huge question, and something I didn’t find out the answer to until I left the building: It was at BBC’s Maida Vale Studios in West London. One of the old studios, Maida Vale 6. They built the panic room in there, and that’s why it was soundproof. Except for one moment, when one of the captors had a panic when an orchestra were rehearsing down the hallway, and you could hear some flutes."

How did Greg get to the toilet?

Greg: "There was a small hatch at the back of the room, and a black walkway to a toilet. If you want any more details, I can give you them."

Did Ainsley really send you the cookbook?

Greg: "This is where it gets interesting. The short answer: no. Ainsley, as we know, is a huge part of this show. When he came in, he sent in some freebies. But then what happened?"

Chris Sawyer [Greg's producer]: "The fact that Ainsley sent us some freebies gave us the idea. Because we wanted the [Escape Room] answer to be with a listener. You had to team up with one listener to get the answer. Every show, more or less, you give away a Star Listener prize. And very often, you’re in a panic about what to give to people. So we were pretty sure, over the course of last week, that you would want to give a Star Listener a prize. But obviously we had to know what was in the book, because otherwise we couldn’t base the whole puzzle around it."

Greg: "So if I hadn’t given away a prize to a Star Listener last week..."

Chris: "Chris – We would have been in a bad way. Someone always calls back the Star Listener to get their address. We jumped in on that call. We called Claudia to find out everything. Once we got the address, we had to keep an eye on Josh – who usually posts these things – to check it was going in the ‘Outgoing’ box. And the second it did, all hell broke loose, and we had to scramble upstairs, and without being seen, go into the box, get the book out, and stop it from getting to the BBC Courier. Our back-up plan was that if it didn’t get to Claudia, someone would have the book."

Was Claudia involved in this at all from the start?

Claudia: "Absolutely 100% no. I’m still not quite sure what’s happened. I’m so grateful that my boss let me go home."

What was the point of it all?

Greg: "That answered its own question. Not everything has to have a point. We just really enjoy doing nonsense on this show. I guess the point is: It’s fun, innit."