Movie sets in London
by Alex Jury
Visit London locations seen in movies.
My Fair Lady
Never has the piazza at Covent Garden looked so
chic as when graced with Audrey Hepburn’s potty-mouthed waif, Eliza
Doolittle. Taken under Rex Harrison’s tone-deaf wing, the film
shows her transformation from common-as-muck flower girl to a softly
spoken mock-Duchess. It’s not unlike the transformation of Covent
Garden itself: once the preserve of flower girls, drunken louts and
lined with brothels it has evolved into the melee of expensive bars,
drunken It-girls and pricey shops that we know and love. Do an
Audrey and treat yourself to a quick dance around one of the market
place’s famous pillars clutching a bunch of violets: Wouldn’t It Be
Luvverly?
A Clockwork Orange
Banned for years in the
country of its setting, Stanley Kubrick’s infamous film version of the
Anthony Burgess novel boasts the controversial tagline, ‘Being the
adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape,
ultra-violence and Beethoven’.
Burgess’ horrifying
vision of a futuristic Britain follows the brutal career of Alex, a
violent teenage hooligan who finds himself jailed after a spree of
beating and raping helpless victims. In exchange for a shorter
sentence he agrees to try controversial “aversion therapy” which
attempts to cure him of his violent urges. Alex leaves prison
hating violence but the film asks whether his actions count as moral
given that he has no capacity to make his decision for himself. A
grim setting for grim subject matter, Kubrick picked the notorious
South Thamesmead Estate as a double for Alex’s own estate.
Withnail and I
A
cult classic, Withnail and I tells the squalid tale of two struggling
actors. Although much of the action takes place in Penrith, the
beginning and end are shot memorably in London. Sadly, the
award-winningly disgusting Camden flat shared by Paul McGann and
Richard E Grant was part of a condemned building that was demolished
shortly after the film was shot. However, you can still visit the
enclosure at Regent’s Park where Withnail gives the greatest
performance of his life as he recites a soliloquy from Hamlet to an
unappreciative audience of wolves.
The Diary of Bridget Jones
Both
the first film and its sequel were shot largely in the capital.
From Bridget’s post-coital cigarette as she passes the
Vegas-esque lights in Piccadilly Circus to her heartbroken
meanderings through Borough Market in a crumpled bunnygirl
outfit, the film is a tour through a 30-something singleton’s London.
Borough
Market is a stone’s throw from London Bridge, a bustling gourmet meat
and cheese market by day, it’s the setting for a melancholy Bridget to
wander miserably through as she contemplates the ‘f***wit’ Daniel
Cleaver and the wrongs he has done her. Bridget may be famously
unlucky and always landing herself in chaos, but she’s certainly no
slouch on the property front, bagging herself a flat in much
sought-after Borough.
Harry Potter
London plays an
essential role in all three films to date because, as any fool knows,
the gateway to the legendary Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and
Wizardry is situated between platforms 9 and 10 at King’s Cross
Station. The barrier between the two platforms leads to the
mystical Platform 9¾ from which the Hogwarts Express departs at the
beginning of each year. No matter that JK Rowling got her
stations mixed up when she was writing and visualized the layout of the
platforms at St Pancras, not King’s Cross, the platform has passed into
folklore and the pillar shown in the film as the magic gateway must be
permanently dented from overenthusiastic Harry fans trying to join
their hero on the train.
28 Days Later
Danny Boyle and
Alex Garland’s horror movie depicts the aftermath of a mystery virus
that wipes out all but a few survivors. Dead bodies aside, some
of the eerier footage consists of spectacular shots of an empty central
London engineered by crew politely asking clubbers to avoid walking
down the streets in the early hours to allow them to capture these
scenes.
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Guy Ritchie’s
breakthrough gangster movie was shot largely in east and south London
in locations such as Bethnal Green Town Hall and Southwark
Bridge. Sting’s cameo appearance was filmed in a bar in St John’s
Street, Holborn and of course, no film about London would be complete
without featuring Borough Market.
Sliding Doors
Gwyneth
Paltrow got the chance to flex her English accent all over the capital
in this tale of two halves: whilst taking the Waterloo and City Line on
her way home from work, one version of her character manages to squeeze
onto the tube, the other experiences the all too-familiar frustration
of the sliding doors slamming in her face. The Paltrow who made
it onto the tube returns home early enough to catch her cheating
boyfriend in the act, gets an edgy haircut and moves on by watching
boat races in Richmond and comforting herself by standing on the Albert
Bridge (which her character claims her grandfather built) whilst gazing
wistfully over the city. The other winds up working in
Bertorelli’s in Charlotte St.
Closer
Closer is the film
version of the successful Patrick Marber play of the same name and
stars Jude Law, Clive Owen, Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman as four
London residents with the most deeply complicated love lives in the
city. The film includes Whiteley’s Shopping Centre in Bayswater,
the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane and Julia Roberts clutching balloons on
the South Bank beside Gabriel’s Wharf with a smile nearly as wide as
the shot of the Thames behind her.
Sense and Sensibility
Emma
Thompson’s Oscar-winning adaptation of the Jane Austen classic was
filmed in Greenwich, apparently the most popular part of London for a
film location. In this instance, the filmmakers were spoilt with
the lovely period buildings of the Queens House and the National
Maritime Museum, not to mention Greenwich Park.
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