When a film is set in London, it can often feel like the whole thing was directed by the tourist board. There’ll be an aerial shot of the London Eye. The Shard will glint in the background. There’ll be taxis by the bucketload. If you’re shooting Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction, characters will attend aggressively sexualised therapy sessions right at the top of the Gherkin. It’s all very narrow and heavy on the landmarks.
Sometimes the suburbs get a look-in, but not all of them. North and west London may have featured in everything from Shaun of the Dead to Bend It Like Beckham, and east London might have been used as a shorthand for grit in films like The Long Good Friday and Ill Manors. But south-east London rarely gets a mention.
True, plenty of films are shot in south-east London – The Da Vinci Code had scenes shot at Biggin Hill airport; Johnny Depp’s Dark Shadows was partly filmed in Beckenham Place Park – but very few films are actually about south-east London.
This is why something like The Bromley Boys feels so refreshing. It hasn’t even been released yet but, simply by being about Bromley FC, it promises a glimpse at a London that passes the rest of the world by. Maybe a character will go running through the Glades shopping centre. Maybe they’ll get to register a death at the Civic Centre or ride around on the 138 to Chestnut Avenue. Maybe the action will venture out as far as Chislehurst Caves, although technically they aren’t in Bromley proper and so any inclusion in The Bromley Boys will be an almighty slap in the face to all true Bromleians.
But with so few movies dedicated to life in London’s forgotten corner, what can we learn about the area from the productions that actually went there? Let’s find out.
1. Nil By Mouth (1997)
Kidbrooke’s Ferrier Estate provided the backdrop for Gary Oldman’s punishing 1997 ode to relentless miserable violence, famed for containing the word “cunt” more than any other film in history. It’s less a tourism advert and more a dire warning for the rest of the world to permanently partition London off. However, film fans had better brace themselves for disappointment, because Ferrier Estate no longer exists. It’s since been replaced by the Kidbrooke Village development, where a one-bed flat now costs close to half a million pounds. If anyone ever makes a sequel to Nil By Mouth, there’s a good chance it’ll feature Ray Winstone petitioning the council to build a nice Waitrose or a pop-up small-batch candlestick retail installation.
2. How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2017)
Although poor Croydon is used in a lot of films – Delta Point became Gotham general hospital in The Dark Knight Rises, for example – not many films actually want to be about Croydon. But the Neil Gaiman adaptation How to Talk to Girls at Parties is both set and filmed there, and it features real-life locations such as the College Green, the multi-storey carpark near College Green and St George’s Walk shopping parade. Of course, it should be pointed out that Croydon is very obviously just a placeholder for miserable suburban nothingness, but Croydonites are probably already quite used to that.
3. Treacle Jr (2010)
There’s an enormous chance that you haven’t seen Jamie Thraves’ Treacle Jr, which came and went in the blink of an eye eight years ago. But it’s nevertheless worth seeking out, because you’d be hard pushed to find a prettier depiction of London’s hidden gems. There are scenes set in Peckham Rye Common and scenes set in West Dulwich, there’s Goose Green and Herne Hill and Walworth. Locals will be thrilled to see the distinctive Sainsbury’s car park on Dog Kennel Hill. Best of all, there’s a lovely sequence set in the Horniman Museum. All films should contain lovely sequences set in the Horniman Museum.
4. Babylon (1980)
Written by Quadrophenia’s Martin Stellman, Babylon, directed by Franco Rosso, is nothing less than south-east London’s Saturday Night Fever. Aswad’s Brindsley Forde plays a garage hand who lives for the Deptford sound system culture at night, encountering racism, violence and police brutality along the way. Again, it’s worth pointing out that Babylon was released 38 years ago, and its depiction of south-east London has now become completely unrecognisable. For example, a Time Out list from 2016 entitled 15 Reasons to Visit Deptford High Street had in first place an Instagram of some nice cocktails sold by a Jamaican-themed bar. I’m sure the guy from Aswad would be thrilled.
5. Harry Brown (2009)
Imagine if Michael Caine had survived the end of Get Carter, then slowly went a bit cantankerous on a Walworth housing estate. Got it? Great, because that means you never have to watch Harry Brown, in which Michael Caine vigilante-murders a load of men in hoodies as brutally as he can. Again – and I realise that this is becoming something of a theme here – Harry Brown was filmed on an estate that no longer exists. It has since been redeveloped into something called Elephant Park where, like Kidbrooke Village, a one-bedroom apartment will cost you half a million quid.
6. Thor 2: The Dark World (2013)
The lousiest Marvel movie featured several key scenes set in south-east London. Coincidence? We may never know. However, if you enjoy seeing famous landmarks getting blown to smithereens, this is the film for you. The Greenwich Old Royal Naval College gets the absolute hell beaten out of it at the climax of this film. In fact, the destruction was so comprehensive that developers have now transformed the site into a luxury housing scheme called Navy Halls, where a dot-sized one-bedroom apartment will now cost you three times more than you will ever earn in your entire life. It’s the south-east London way, after all.
