WE’VE all been at it—watching more television and films during the pandemic, that is. We shouldn’t feel guilty about this, as demand has helped to drive prodigious growth in quality content production, with British studio space set to more than double from some 3.4 million square feet today.
Studio space only tells half the story, however. Britain is blessed with extraordinary natural settings, authentic ‘props’, and sublimely rich storytelling heritage. Nowhere exemplifies these blessings better than Scotland. As well as memorably playing itself in scores of films, it has doubled as everywhere from New York to Jupiter.
Scottish landmarks can provide backdrops for an unusual range of productions. On the Isle of Skye, the Trotternish peninsula, with its otherworldly Old Man of Storr rock outcrop, has featured in both Shakespearean drama set in the 11th century (Macbeth with Michael Fassbender, 2015) and late-21stcentury sci-fi (Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, 2012). The changeability of light and atmosphere can lend endless variety—and the occasional production headache. Clifftop Dunnottar Castle in Aberdeenshire was Elsinore in the 1990 film of Hamlet starring Mel Gibson. ‘Nice and eerie,’ he recalled. ‘The trouble is, the weather wasn’t. We came here for dark and angry weather; instead, we got Miami.’
This story is from the August 25, 2021 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the August 25, 2021 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
