Bit of a Rec: actor Andrew Scott, as Adam in All Of Us Strangers. Much of it was filmed on location in Sanderstead, including the municipal recreation ground
Location, Location, Location… CAITLIN CLIFFORD delves into the back catalogue of movies, TV shows and ads that have taken inspiration from using Croydon as a backdrop for their dramas.
PLUS: PODCAST: Listen to Andrew Haigh interviewed about how he made his Sanderstead home central to All Of Us Strangers
In April, filmmaker Andrew Haigh visited the David Lean Cinema for a screening of his latest film, All Of Us Strangers.
During the subsequent interview with Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw and BAFTA-winning actress, and patron of the cinema, Joanna Scanlan, Haigh spoke of his time growing up in Croydon, and how it had influenced him.
His film, much of it shot on location in Sanderstead, is a beautiful ode to both family and home. It is not surprising that Haigh chose to use his own childhood home in Sanderstead for the childhood home of Adam, the film’s protagonist, played by Andrew Scott.
Setting the scene: filmmaker Andrew Haigh was able to use his old home on Purley Downs Road in the film
In fact, Haigh remarked that it appeared to be the last house on the road to remain untouched by time, allowing Haigh to use his own old photo of the house in the film (although with Claire Foy carefully photoshopped into the image).
Filmed in the summer of 2022, All Of Us Strangers features not only Haigh’s old home on Purley Downs Road, but other locations around Sanderstead, too, such as the railway station, the Recreation Ground and the high street (where Scott is first shown meeting Jamie Bell’s character – whose identity I won’t spoil for those who have not yet watched the film).
It also shows Scott sitting on the familiar turquoise seat of a Southern train while travelling from central London to Croydon, and shows bona fide stars Scott, Foy and Bell leisurely making their way through the Whitgift Centre – a shot that received laughter and cheers from the Croydon audience during the screening at the David Lean.
Centre of attention: movie stars Claire Foy, Jamie Bell and Andrew Scott (the tio approaching the escalators) in a scene shot in Croydon’s Whitgift Centre
Croydon has had plenty of screen time over the years, a regular favourite location for many film-makers.
In the spotlight: Croydon, such as the Fairfield Halls for The Crown, is a favoured location for TV and film
When All Of Us Strangers was being filmed two years ago, the floodlights and movie crews were set up outside the Fairfield Halls for a couple of nights just for a brief scene for the TV series The Crown, with the Croydon arts venue filling in for the Festival Hall as Princess Diana arrives for an awards event or concert.
The Whitgift Centre probably first appeared as a television backdrop, notoriously, in the title sequence for Terry and June, the 1970s BBC sitcom.
And it has been used multiple times since, including for The IT Crowd, the Channel 4 comedy with Richard Ayoade and Chris O’Dowd (whatever happened to them?), in which the duo attempt to run back up a downwards-moving escalator.
And just across Old Town, Not Going Out, the BBC coedy which has been running for almost 20 years, filmed outside the Salvation Army citadel as Lee Mack lies in the road after being hit by a car in the spoof episode, “Life on Mars Bars”.
Until director Haigh and All Of Us Strangers came along, no television show or movie used its Croydon location as such an integral part of the piece as much as the long-running Peep Show Channel 4 comedy did, with Zodiac Court in Broad Green playing the “part” of Mark and Jez’s home, Apollo House.
Switch it off, then switch it back on…: The IT Crowd’s Richard Ayoade and Chris O’Dowd came to Croydon
For the first two series, the scenes set in the flat occupied by Mark and Jeremy, played by David Mitchell and Robert Webb, were actually filmed in the flat in Croydon. When, from series three, the flat’s owners would no longer give access to their home for filming, the programme had to recreate the set in a Neasden warehouse.
As well as Mitchell and Webb, Peep Show also featured Oscar-winning Olivia Colman and Sophie Winkleman (half-sister of Claudia who has since married a minor Royal) in its star-studded cast.
Croydon was chosen as a location because the series’ first director liked the idea of including trams in the programme – but he was never allowed to film on the Croydon transport system.
Hollywood star Tom Hanks has strutted the stage in Croydon in one of his most famous movies, in the lecture scene in The Da Vinci Code (2006), filmed in the Fairfield Halls.
Hollywood comes to Croydon: Tom Hanks filmed on stage at the Fairfield Halls for The Da Vinci Code
The 2010 British comedy drama, Made In Dagenham, was in fact made in Croydon, using the 1960s-look of St George’s Walk for scenes starring Miranda Richardson, Geraldine James and Rosamund Pike as they played striking machinists demanding equal pay from Ford. It’s renowned as a feel-good movie: the strikers won.
How To Talk To Girls At Parties (2017 – starring Elle Fanning and Nicole Kidman, among many others) and Jason Bourne (2016 – with Matt Damon) were also shot here.
Using the Cronx as a forboding Gotham, The Dark Knight Rises (2012 – with Christian Bale), adapted the former BT office building at West Croydon, Delta Point, as the Gotham City hospital. They may not have had to make too many changes…
The number of Oscar-winning actors who have worked in Croydon is frankly astounding.
It’s a trend that shows no signs of slowing down, with Hollywood stars Idris Elba, John Cena and Priyanka Chopra Jonas being spotted just last year in Croydon filming upcoming action comedy, Heads of State.
Going down a storm: Nadia Rose filmed her 2018 ad on Surrey Street Market
The makers of TV ads and commercials don’t seem able to get enough of Croydon’s wide variety of locations, Nadia Rose shot her 2018 Make It Happen video for Barclays on home turf on Howley Road in Old Town (with Croydon Minster round the corner and Old Palace’s netball courts visible in shot behind her), as well as in Surrey Street Market and on top of the Centrale car park.
And even when Croydon is not in shot, it often appears as a punchline. In the BBC’s murder mystery series, Death in Paradise, the British detective sent out to help on the Caribbean island of Saint Marie, Ben Miller, reveals that he is from Croydon, which he says he misses, despite the idyllic location of his policing assignment.
In Iron Man 3 (2013), Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) informs Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) that Ben Kingsley’s character’s “King Lear was the toast of Croydon, wherever that is.”
Superhero: Spiderman star Tom Holland is one of the many top performers with Croydon links
And sure, it might be an unflattering punchline to a joke, but together with Dark Knight, it puts Croydon right in the centre of both major superhero fandoms, Marvel and DC. Not too shabby.
With so many links to films and TV shows, and the wealth of stars who come from or studied in Croydon, thanks to Brit School graduates including Adele, Amy Winehouse and Tom Holland, there really ought to be any excuse for the likes of Killian not to have heard of the place any longer.
It can only be a matter of time before Croydon’s up on the big screen again.
Under The Flyover is our podcast strand which features star interviews, and is usually available only to paid-up subscribers of Inside Croydon. Here is our recording from earlier this year of director Andrew Haigh’s interview with Peter Bradshaw at the David Lean Cinema, talking about why Croydon was such a central part of All Of Us Strangers
- Caitlin Clifford has been undertaking work experience with Inside Croydon
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
The late actor Geoffrey Palmer started his acting career as an (unpaid) assistant stage manager at the Grand Theatre in Croydon.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0658244/bio/
And of course, The Bill.
And a little less recently, English Heritage have a blue plaque honouring Peter Cushing’s childhood home in the borough too.