‘We had to ask if we could blow up parts of central London’
Top Boy, Baby Reindeer and Hollywood crews on what it takes to film in the capital
Morning — this week, a loo break in north London ended in disaster for a film crew. “We were driving from Birmingham to London, stopped at a rest stop in Barnet for exactly 4 1/2 minutes to use the restroom, and came back to our van completely cleaned out,” explained Man v. Food star Adam Richman in a now-viral post on X. “All of the filming equipment is gone.” Richman followed up with screenshots of the thieves’ getaway via the tracker on his laptop — but he was eventually asked by police to stop and he called his outraged fans off.
London may be the third biggest city globally for TV and film, behind LA and New York, but that doesn’t mean shooting in the city comes without headaches. Today we bring you a piece by entertainment journalist Gregory Wakeman, who’s been chatting with insiders to find out what it’s really like making a TV show or movie in a city as busy as ours. They say that for all the creativity London helps inspire, it’s often a logistical nightmare: informing the Met Police that you want to blow stuff up; pleaing with TfL to divert services; paying off borough councils; explaining to regulars why you’ve shut down their local boozer.
What it takes to film in London is below.
The reality of making TV and film in London
By Gregory Wakeman
Chloe Misson knew she was about to give herself a lot more work to do.
As the location manager for season four of Top Boy, a TV crime thriller set in east London, she’d been tasked with finding suitable flats for the production. The ones she’d found were perfect. There was just one problem.
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