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Set-Jetting Off The Silverscreen
When I lived in Oxford a decade or three ago, it would have amazed me to imagine that my modest street in the working-class neighbourhood of Jericho would one day witness scores of escorted tour parties earnestly retracing the murder investigations of Inspector Morse. But at last this sign of the times has gained a name. Set-jetting is defined as a passion to visit places you read about in books or see portrayed in films and television. Estimates vary on how widespread the fad is, but it’s a fair guess that well over a quarter of us are influenced to some extent in our choice of holiday destinations by novels or screen presentations.
Perhaps it all started in the land of Hollywood, but the UK is catching on fast - the blockbusting success of The Da Vinci Code has produced a massive hike in visitor numbers both to the places mentioned in the original novel and to the locations used in the recently released film starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou.
It’s a rare destination these days that fails to make the most of any fictional media coverage, however tenuous the association. Visitors are just as likely to find themselves on the Dracula Trail or in Catherine Cookson Country as in Whitby or Tyneside. Acknowledging ‘spirit of place’ as an essential element in film production, the Film Distributors’ Association celebrated its 50th Cinema Days event last autumn by inviting over 2,000 film writers and critics to nominate the ten films that had made the most atmospheric use of British locations. The top three were Local Hero (set in Pennan, Aberdeenshire), The Full Monty (Sheffield), and Trainspotting (Edinburgh).
Set-jetting is particularly prevalent among the under-35 age group, though a growing number of ‘Silver Set-Jetters’ (over-65s) will admit their travel plans are swayed by novels, films or fictional television. Whatever our age, the most hard-boiled of us find it hard to resist the lure of a good yarn combined with the magic of the camera’s eye.
The West Country’s lusciously varied coastline and countryside remain unfailingly popular. Cornwall, is virtually a co-star in ITV’s Doc Martin (filmed in the picturesque coastal village of Port Isaac), and keen location-spotters can have endless fun with the long-running Cornish detective series Wycliffe. Devon is the scene of many a dastardly murder solved by Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes, while Dorset has been sympathetically filtered through the lenses of River Cottage and Harbour Lights, and frequently targeted for TV screenings of Thomas Hardy. Bath and Lyme Regis are regular haunts for dramatisations of Jane Austen novels.
Above any other UK location, London’s street scenes mould the world’s perceptions of Britain. Ranging from the gritty wharves and council estates of the East End (The Sweeney, The Bill) to the elegant Regency terraces of Greenwich, Mayfair and Notting Hill, the capital provides an infinitely variable canvas. It’s a journey through time as well as space: the medieval Tower of London, Shakespeare’s quasi-Elizabethan Globe Theatre, Wren’s City churches, the murky Victorian streets of Dickens, Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper, the bombsites of the Blitz, Carnaby Street in the Swinging Sixties, the glittering high-rises of regenerated Docklands – these are just a handful of London’s multifarious props enshrined in cinematic and broadcast media.
Some locations are in regular demand for film and television appearances. Harrow School has generated handy chunks of income from productions such as the recent Harry Potter films and the eerie china clay pits around Cornwall’s St Austell have conjured other-worldly sets for Dr Who. Nearby Charlestown Harbour has starred in any number of period dramas (Moll Flanders, Frenchman’s Creek), capitalising on its traditional setting and resident tall ships. Gloucester Docks featured in Vanity Fair and The Onedin Line, while Burghley House near Stamford has cornered a useful slice of the Elizabethan costume drama market, and Lyme Park in Cheshire spells desirable Georgian residence bar none since Mr Darcy’s famous wet evening-shirt scene in the BBC’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
Some of the scenes set oversees are surprisingly shifted to Britain, the genteel little Cheshire town of Knutsford miraculously turned into colonial wartime Shanghai in Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun while East London’s Galion’s Reach on the site of the disused Beckton Gasworks improbably morphed into Vietnam in Full Metal Jacket. Within the precincts of Pinewood Studios, hundreds of even more startling stand-ins have taken shape – from ice palaces and Cambodian tombs to ambitious mock-ups of Venice and the Paris Opera.
You can find out more about film and TV locations in Britain from hundreds of websites. Try:
www.visitbritain.com
About Visit Britain
Visit Britain markets Britain to the rest of the world and England to the British, building the value of tourism throughout Britain and throughout the year by creating world-class destination brands and marketing campaigns. It also builds partnerships with – and provides insights to – other organizations that have a stake in English and British tourism.
Visit Britain works in partnership with the national tourist boards in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to promote an attractive image of Britain. It provides impartial tourism information and gathers essential market intelligence for the UK tourism industry.
For more information please visit www.visitbritain.com.my.
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