text:
Excerpt from Trust Exercise
February 24, 2020 Fiction
By SUSAN CHOI
The author of this excerpt, Susan Choi, will be a guest at Amherst College's LitFest 2020.
It's been obvious from the beginning who are Broadway Babies and who aren't. Those who truly can sing, who can give them the old razzle-dazzle, who live for that one singular sensation, have for the most part drawn attention to themselves from the first day of school. They cluster around the Black Box piano during rainy-day lunchtimes and sing The Fantasticks. They wear the Cats sweatshirts to school that they got on their holiday trip to New York. Some of them, like the Junior named Chad, are enviably serious musicians who can not only sing but play Sondheim, for real, from sheet music. Some of them, like Erin O'Leary, don't just sing but dance like Ginger Rogers, having apparently put on tap shoes at the same time as they took their first steps.
Sarah's failure to be Erin O'Leary used to be a point of pride, if a wobbly one. Now Sarah is furious with her coarse heavy hair, the opposite of Erin's dandelion floss, with her wide hips the opposite of Erin's trim ones, with her big unskilled feet in their dirty misused ballet flats the opposite of Erin's miniature ones which make scissoring blurs through the air. Sarah is furious with the faltering squawk of her voice, the opposite of Erin's "songbird." Historically, Theatre students like Sarah (and David) who couldn't sing or dance solaced themselves with Uta Hagen, Beckett, and Shakespeare. They reminded themselves they were serious Theatre Artists, that Broadway was cheeseball one end to the other. Of course they kept this knowledge to themselves, out of respect for Mr. Kingsley and genuine awe for his musical talent. They were never troubled by their condescension, or at least Sarah wasn't. But now that it's mainstage auditions again, all of them are reminded, some of them more painfully than others, of how much they're exalted by big musicals. David loves Jesus Christ Superstar, knows all the words, sings along tunelessly with the album when he is alone. Sarah has the same secret relationship to Evita. They are serious; but how much better if they also could sing, if they could startle and move their classmates on those rainy days standing around the piano? If, implored by Mr. Kingsley, they could deign to play Christ, or Evita—for the good of the show, given that they were best for the role?
Such secret talent isn't theirs, however. They remind themselves— though not in conversation, for David and Sarah don't speak to each other, or have any idea where the other is sitting, so many rows distant as to be reduced to just a dark head tilted over a book, remote and indifferent and hateful and completely ignored (in fact, not even noticed)—of how corny Guys and Dolls is, how glad they both are to be taking a pass on auditions, how much more absorbing they're finding Endgame (David) or the first scene of King Lear, beyond which she has never yet managed to penetrate (Sarah). They do not share these similar feelings, the similarity having no meaning for them. They do, of course, actually watch the auditions, their hearts in their mouths, almost sick with vicarious hope.
It is, Sarah bitterly thinks, like an Erin O'Leary coronation. Erin will be Adelaide, of course. Acknowledging this, she sings "Adelaide's Lament," Mr. Bartoli, the dance department accompanist who also serves as musical director, practically bouncing off the bench as he plays, so acute is his pleasure in playing for her. Many, many of the boys, including many who, like David, can't sing, but who, unlike David, don't care, sing "I got the horse right here," making up for their laughable voices with a lot of mugging and humorous gestures. Some of them will get cast, as the gamblers do not have to be melodic and do have to be funny. David flushes with the consciousness of his own cowardice, the fraudulence of his appeal to Erin. Soon Erin, like Sarah, will find him repulsive unless he can make himself worthy. Sightlessly staring at Endgame, he vows to himself that he'll audition for the musical next year. In their department, auditions take place constantly—for the grade-level Showcase productions; for the Senior Directing Projects; for the Outdoor Shakespeare every May; for the Spring Mainstage (Drama) and, as now, Fall Mainstage (Musical)—and each round of auditions tends to confirm a corresponding, slightly different pecking order: the purely social pecking order of the sophomore class, in which both Sarah and David rank high; the pecking order of the Serious Actors, which David has started to climb; the pecking order of the Adults-in-Training, the perpetual Stage Managers, whose skills Mr. Browne ferrets out even when they are trying to hide them (Sarah fears this is her fate). But only fall auditions for the mainstage musical reveal a pecking order applicable to the whole school, for only in the fall musical does the whole school take part. The dancers happily subordinate themselves to chorus roles. The instrumental-music students hold their own auditions, for the mainstage orchestra. Among the Theatre students it is often repeated that the dramatic and musical mainstage productions are equal in status, but everyone knows this is bunk. Playing the lead in the dramatic mainstage doesn't even rate as highly as playing a secondary character in the musical. None of them, not even those who arrived at the school with an actual hatred of musicals, question this valuation. None of them wonder what things might be like if, say, someone other than Mr. Kingsley ran the Theatre program. Brilliant as he is, his hierarchies must be objective, and even last year, when it was still a point of pride to Sarah not to be Erin O'Leary, she had asked her mother for ballet, jazz, and tap lessons, so as to do better in the in-school lessons. Her mother had said, "Are you kidding? Isn't that what you're already doing all day, instead of preparing for college?"
As the auditions wear on, Sarah puts down King Lear and she, Pammie, Ellery, and Joelle, who will all work on costumes, compile a cast list. The female roles are a gimme; it's hardly possible to guess wrong. The male roles, more numerous, sometimes make for a dark horse or two, and the fun lies in guessing at these. Norbert is auditioning, and Ellery sinks in his seat and grabs Sarah and Joelle, on either side of him. "Girls," he whispers, "give me strength."
"Why aren't you auditioning?" Sarah asks him.
"Just because I'm beautiful and black doesn't mean I can sing." Last year, as Freshmen, they had taken sight-reading, and been obliged to stand at the piano and warble the length of a page of sheet music chosen with indifference to their ranges, if they even had ranges. It hadn't been much of a showcase for vocal, or even sight-reading, skill, and a few of them, as often happened, had bombed, while a few others unexpectedly triumphed. Taniqua and Pammie, both church chorus veterans, had amazed with their sheet music literacy and their competent voices. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Manuel, when summoned to the piano, went rigid, his sheet music snapping in the breeze of his quivering hands. His skin, always dustily brown, turned mesmerically red like a coal in the fire. Just when they thought he would faint, his mouth slowly hinged open—and hung that way, mutely, as if he were an abandoned ventriloquist's dummy. A rustle of incipient laughter passed over the room. "Quiet," Mr. Kingsley had said, striking the first note of whatever it was he had given Manuel to sight-read. They were all forced to watch Manuel's pitiful trembling outlive the note's lengthy vibration. "One more time," Mr. Kingsley had said, striking the key and renewing the note in their ears. Was it possible for total petrifaction to grow yet more total, yet more petrified? It apparently was. Manuel was going to stand there enacting the meaning of "dumbstruck" until either Mr. Kingsley showed mercy or the bell rang to end class. "You're not off the hook," Mr. Kingsley had finally said, dismissing Manuel with surprising anger. In general Mr. Kingsley's anger was reserved for his pets, who wore it as a badge of distinction. Mr. Kingsley didn't bother being angry at people of whom nothing much was expected.
Now, as Mr. Kingsley called, "Next!" to the auditioners waiting concealed in the wings, Ellery clamped Sarah's elbow again. "Am I dreaming?" he squeaked.
Manuel had come onstage, an apparition. Perhaps it wasn't Manuel. He wasn't dressed like Manuel, in the slightly too-small and slightly too-youthful striped T-shirts you could tell, just from looking, had been bought from the sale rack at Sears, or maybe from the Purple Heart Thrift Store, by Manuel's unknown mother, after being discarded by whoever had bought them at Sears. The shirts Manuel wore every day had pills, and faint, ancient stains of the kind that defeated all efforts, and they squeezed his upper arms and his neck. For pants, Manuel wore corduroys that had almost no cord left. And regardless of weather conditions, Manuel never took off his jacket, the same fake-wool-lined corduroy jacket they'd first seen him in, and that seemed to them now as permanent as a turtle's scuffed shell. The onstage Manuel was missing this traditional garb, though not dressed any better. He wore a pair of black slacks that were shiny with age, and a grayish-white button-up shirt that, despite being short at the sleeves, was tightly buttoned at the cuffs, emphasizing the bony excess of his wrists. The feet were encased in hard black leather shoes that looked too small, and the usual bushy brown hair was combed back from the face exposing large, startled eyes, unfamiliar to all, beneath an equally novel, creased brow. A sheaf of paper was gripped in the hands. The Manuel-apparition looked like a waiter, an unhappy and poorly dressed waiter. Sarah realized with amazement he was dressing, as well as he could, for the part. Guys and Dolls would of course call for old-fashioned menswear: leather shoes, slacks, a button-up shirt. Not one other boy, for the sake of the audition, had made the slightest alteration to his everyday clothes. They'd all auditioned in their Levi's and polos and dumb slogan T-shirts.
It did seem possible this was a dream. As on the day of the sight-reading test, a titter passed over the house, instantly extinguished when Mr. Kingsley stood up from his place in the center of the third row. "Okay, Manuel. What do you have for us?"
Ellery squeezes Sarah's hand, and Sarah squeezes back. On his other side he has Joelle's hand. On Sarah's other side is Pammie. Joelle and Pammie are squeezing their eyes shut and clutching their cheeks; Pammie is so agonized she balls up in her seat like a hedge-hog. Both Joelle and Pammie, for their separate if equally feminine reasons, feel a motherly pity for Manuel, though neither has managed to befriend him. He doesn't afford the slightest opportunity, speaking to no one—not even Pammie, with her pious childlike fearlessness, can get him to answer her cheery "Hello!" Sarah hears Pammie fervently mumbling. It's possible, in fact likely, that she's praying.
"What do you have for us?" Mr. Kingsley repeats.
Manuel again turns that mesmerizing color of a live coal. At length he says, barely audibly, "I am going to sing the 'Ave Maria' of [a bunch of syllables Sarah can't hear]." Strings seem to be tied to his elbows, equally pulling on him from both sides, so that, in his tensile, motionless state, he might fly to pieces. Then the stage-left string breaks, and he lurches toward Mr. Bartoli, extending his music. Mr. Bartoli pages through it, nods. "Shall I begin?" he asks. Manuel wrings his hands in a fretful grandmotherly way, abruptly drops them to his sides. Mr. Kingsley, still standing, his back to the rest of the house, says, "Manny, I know you can do it."
He speaks as though he and Manuel are entirely alone. Yet no one in the house fails to hear him, to the very last row.
It's possible for silence to change quality. The silence had been enforced, the silence of quashed merriment. Now it's the silence of genuine puzzlement. Mr. Kingsley never uses nicknames or pet names. To indicate an altered attitude he sometimes calls them, instead of their given names, Ms. or Mr. and then their last name. This denotes bemusement, disapproval, and much in between, but whatever the case there is always a distance implied. "Manny" observes no such distance. "Manny" doesn't even observe that there might be some forty-odd people elsewhere in the room.
Mr. Kingsley sits down again. The back of his head, with its limited features, its expensive haircut, and the ends of his spectacles' temples hooking over the backs of his ears, is nearly as expressive to them as his face—it radiates a peremptory certitude. "Come on. You know what I want. Give it to me." If the back of his head can say this, just imagine the front. (Ms. Rozot: "If the pen can do this, how much more the whole body!") Manuel—Manny?—seems to be in wordless communication with this hidden front of Mr. Kingsley's head. He gazes into it, receives something from it—he looked different when he first came onstage, and he somehow looks different again. With what might almost be called self-possession he nods to Mr. Bartoli. Mr. Bartoli raises his hands, brings them plunging back down. Manuel sucks air into his lungs.
To this point in her life, Sarah has associated opera with Bugs Bunny in braids, PBS, overweight men wearing tunics, shrieking women, and shattering glass. She's never understood, certainly because she's never seen a live opera but also because she's never heard a half-decent performance, not even in part, on TV, that opera, in fact, is the highest redemption of longing. That it's her own anguish, salvaged by music. The victorious army's fight song, in defense of her mute, savaged heart.
Now she understands why Ms. Rozot has warned her to not turn away from her pain.
Manuel sings. His Spanish accent, which he drags like a weight on his uncertain journeys amid English words, is a bona fide now. Who else among them could sing this, even if they were blessed with the voice? Who else among them is blessed with the voice? Manuel sings, it seems, to horizons beyond the light booth. His eyes are cast up, anxiously, as if he's aware he is barely retaining the fickle attention of God. So plaintively does he exhort this remote audience that Sarah glances back over her shoulder, expecting to see ranks of angels, their feet floating just off the ground. Instead she sees the faces of her classmates, rapt with unself-consciousness, the joyful respite from the problems of self. She too has passed out of herself, so thoroughly, so happily, that for a moment even David's face is strange to her, and not just because his eyes are full of tears. Her body twists forward again as if slapped, as Manuel, like a fountain, upraises his arms and their glorious burden, his final note, into the air. As if they awaited this gesture, the house detonates: clapping, whistling, foot-stamping, Ellery leaping up to shout, "Hombre!" Onstage Manuel, streaming with sweat, grins while wringing his hands. We've all had this dream, Sarah thinks. The dream in which, to the world's surprise and our own, we turn out to be best.
Mr. Bartoli pushes the piano bench smartly behind him, crosses to Manuel, claps him on the shoulder, and pumps him warmly by the hand. They're only forty-odd kids but they make the noise of a full house. They keep going, on their feet, so that except to the rows nearest him, Mr. Kingsley goes almost unnoticed when, pushing his spectacles onto the top of his head, he roughly draws his sleeve across his forehead and eyes. Then, "Someone write down the date!" he shouts at them. "Manuel Avila's public debut!"
IN THE PARKING lot, at lunchtime, Sarah sits hunched on the hood of the Mazda with Joelle, Sarah scratching sometimes in her notebook, the two of them smoking clove cigarettes, Sarah ignoring the sandwich her mother has packed her. Her mother packs for Sarah, every morning, even when they're not speaking, as now, a sandwich of meat from the deli, sliced cheese, Grey Poupon, a slice of tomato, and lettuce on some kind of a bakery bun that will have either poppy or sesame seeds. "Your sandwich looks like a restaurant sandwich!" Joelle once exclaimed in wonder, and since then Sarah doesn't unwrap it, but when lunchtime is over drops it into the trash as they're going inside. She does so with her face turned away, as if not having seen herself do it might mean that she hasn't. On the far side of the lot the pale blue Karmann Ghia pulls in, perhaps some litter from the Del Taco drive-through carelessly tossed on the floor, perhaps David, ridiculous in a pair of Ray-Bans, enthroned on the passenger seat, but if Sarah has not in fact seen this, it might mean it isn't the case. No one can prove it's the case. Her eyes are night headlights; they only see what's just ahead. It's an unending labor, this policing of vision and thoughts.
"You look exhausted," Mr. Kingsley says, once he's shut his office door with a click that broadcasts the length of the hall. The ticket of admission. The door has shut on faces pretending absorption in the bulletin board, as if anyone need consult beyond his or her memory to obtain the full cast list, which was posted last week (Sky Masterson: Manuel Avila). Her fellow students are loitering in the hallway outside in the hopes of obtaining what she's just received: his particular summons. Pride and humiliation strangely mingle their tastes in her mouth, or perhaps it's the tart, rancid coffee to which she has lowered her face. He's handed it to her, in a Styro-foam cup, from his personal drip coffee maker. Pride she's been chosen, humiliation at what she presumes are the grounds for his choice. They all know the students with whom he is sometimes seen driving away, at lunchtime, in his olive Mercedes; whom he detains with no more than a look, as the rest of the class filters out of the room; behind whom he closes the door to his office at lunchtime. They're the Troubled students, the borderline ones, whose sufferings are eagerly whispered the lengths of the halls. Jennifer, who missed school for a month and now only wears sleeves that hang well past her wrists. Greg, the incandescently beautiful Senior, with whom Julietta and Pammie are madly in love, who despite his impeccable clothes, dazzling smile, and kindness, was thrown out of the house by his father, and now lives at the YMCA. Manuel, whose stark poverty is newly palatable because coupled with talent. And Sarah, about whom they say—what?
She's so in love with David she let him fuck her in the hall! And now he's dumped her.
"I don't get a lot of sleep," she concedes.
"I have this job. At a French bakery. I have to be there at six in the morning on weekends. Both days."
"What time do you go to sleep on the nights you have work?"
"What time do you get up on weekdays?"
"The same. About six."
"And you're going to bed when? On weekdays."
"The same. One or two."
"You're going to kill yourself," he observes, and she thinks he's predicting an event in the future, her actual suicide, and then realizes he's speaking figuratively, or probably figuratively, about the long-term effects of not sleeping enough.
"I am really tired," she agrees, and just like that, she is crying again. Her shoulders hitch, and try as she might she can't stop bringing up chunks of wet, ragged noise. She knows it's expected yet knows equally that sometimes, some greater forbearance is also expected. Mr. Kingsley is not Ms. Rozot. Jennifer the failed suicide, Greg the orphan by force, impoverished Manuel, and her, Sarah—they've all been robbed of heedless childhood and that's why they've been chosen, their precocious adulthood acknowledged. All kids want such glamorous knowledge. The darkness of it. The hardness of it. The realness of it. The cold fact that life really is fucked. And Sarah, with her Morrissey T-shirts and her unfiltered Camels and her sleep deprivation and her willful compliance with sexual hungers, she's been asking for this awful dispossession, with one mind she's been hot on its trail, and now that she's got it she longs to go back. If she could only go back, and eat the sandwich her mother packed her, with its thoughtful tomato.
She cries, as expected by him, and she eventually masters her tears, as also expected by him. She cleans her face and blows her nose with his Kleenex and disposes of it in his trash. She even takes out her Sportsac of makeup and unhurriedly fixes her face. When she snaps shut her compact she feels his approval as clearly as if he had spoken.
"So," he says, pleased. "Why don't you tell me what's actually happening."
She tells him. Not all that same day; they're already out of time. But now she is a regular. Their meetings wholly evident, and wholly unacknowledged, as is any exclusive liaison, by those it makes complicit, yet excludes. David sees, and grinds his molars together by day and by night to the point that the dentist has threatened to make him a mold to wear while he's asleep. David, God help him, has no consciousness of discarding Sarah, but of being discarded. Here's a girl, unlike any other girl he's ever been with, who, once told of his love, doesn't grab hold of his hand, hang herself on his arm, drag him out to the mall or the movies with the chattering flock of her friends, but to the contrary, spooks like a horse when he walks in the room. Swathes herself in cold air and then dares him to try and reach her, and how can he? Is it possible their whole love affair was a misunderstanding? David had known she slept with guys who were older than he, in some cases much older. Seeing her embarrassment, their first day back at school, David had felt like a charity case. She'd allowed him, but he shouldn't let anyone know. And then the thing in the hallway, strange proof: she'll come to him when nobody's looking.
Or is it possible, Sarah says to Mr. Kingsley, that their whole breakup is a misunderstanding? Isn't it possible, Sarah begs Mr. Kingsley, that David still loves her? How could he say that he did, and then not?
"Do you love him?"
"Yes." Then, unnerved by her certainty, "I mean, maybe. I think."
"Have you told him how you feel?"
"How could I?"
Acting is: fidelity to authentic emotion, under imagined circumstances. Fidelity to authentic emotion is: standing up for your feelings. Is this not the one thing, the one thing, he has tried to teach them? At first she thinks he's barked out of anger, then grasps that he's laughing. Perhaps he is laughing at her, but at least he's not angry. "God," he says, and even in the sanctum of his office his laugh is a stage laugh, artillery fire. "Thank you. I forget sometimes: it's a process. And, you know, it never ends. That's the beauty of it."
She doesn't know what he's talking about, but once she's cleaned herself up yet again with the box of Kleenex, she puts on her wise, weary face. "So it is," she agrees.
"What about your mother?"
"What about her?"
"How are you getting along?"
"I don't know. Not that bad. Not that well. Even when we're not fighting we don't really talk."
"She drives you to work on the weekend. You must talk in the car."
"Not really. It's so early in the morning. We just get in the car and drive there."
"I think the bakery job is too much. You should be sleeping on the weekend. Having fun."
"I need the job," she says tersely, because Mr. Kingsley is as unlikely as her mother to sympathize with her implacable pursuit of a car. She's unaware that her tone might suggest the brusque pride of the abjectly poor, particularly when paired with her tatty punk wardrobe. She does resent the absence in her life of a pale blue Karmann Ghia convertible, but she knows she's not poor. Not rich, certainly, in the little two-bedroom apartment behind the chalk X with her mother's long-serving Toyota. But not poor.
He is silent a moment, thoughtful. "You and David come from very different worlds."
"How do you mean?"
"David comes from a world of privilege."
She doesn't wonder how he knows this, or whether he's guessed. "I suppose more than me."
"He's not working."
"No. He doesn't have to. When he turns sixteen, his mother and Philip will buy him a car."
"Who's Philip?"
"His stepfather."
"Ah. Is that a recent thing?"
"It can't be that recent. His mom and Philip have a two-year-old baby."
"So David's the big brother," Mr. Kingsley says, smiling.
She smiles also, to designate David this way. "He already was. He's the oldest from his mother's first marriage. Then his mother left his father for Philip, David thinks because Philip had money. David's real dad never had any money. David says his parents, his mom and real dad, burned his childhood house down to collect the insurance. So in that sense, originally, he's not from such a privileged background," she concludes, overwhelmed by her flood of disclosures.
But Mr. Kingsley does not judge her craving to talk about David. He does not judge her breathless uncertainty, now that she's stopped. He reaches out, across the corner of his desk, and takes her hand. "You got to know each other," he observes. She nods mutely, all fluency diverted again from her tongue to her eyes.
That night when Joelle drops her off, after ten, her mother's at the kitchen table in her robe. Usually by this hour she's behind the closed door of her bedroom. Her mother's brown hair, streaked with kinky white strands, hangs down loose to her shoulders. She's wearing men's athletic socks on her feet. "Your teacher called," she says.
"Mr. Kingsley."
"Mr. Kingsley called here? Why?" Some terrified animal group—a quad of quail? a mess of mice?—explodes into flight inside Sarah's rib cage.
"I have no idea why. I know his stated reason. He called to ask about your bakery job. He asked if I could possibly let you stop doing it, for your health and well-being. He seemed to think that I force you to do it and keep all your earnings."
"I never said that to him!"
"I told him I don't have the slightest control over how you spend your time, at the bakery or anywhere else. I'd like to know what made him feel entitled to call me about it."
"I don't know, Mom."
"I'd be very happy if you quit that job, and I could quit driving you there at five thirty both weekend mornings, but you're so determined to buy your own car, you're so convinced that not owning a car at the age of fifteen is some sort of awful deprivation, you've somehow convinced me I'd be mistreating you by not giving you rides to your job. And now your teacher, who keeps you at your school for twelve hours a day painting pieces of canvas and gluing flowers on hats, this man calls to suggest I'm mistreating you by forcing you to work, as if I'm making you sing for your supper? How dare he! Who the sam hell does he think he is?"
"I don't know, Mom. I never said that to him."
"I happen to agree with him that you should quit that job, but that doesn't mean that I want his opinion. Your life outside school isn't any of his goddamn business. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes," she says, edging toward her bedroom. Already, his phone call's impact has changed shape. In the instant, she'd felt his betrayal, the violation of their special alliance. Now she grasps that he's mounted a challenge to her mother's authority. He has intruded for the sake of intruding. How proud she feels, to command his attention.
From the book Trust Exercise by Susan Choi. Copyright © 2019 by Susan Choi. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company.
Susan Choi's first novel, The Foreign Student, won the Asian American Literary Award for fiction. Her second novel, American Woman, was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize and was adapted into a film. Her third novel, A Person of Interest, was a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award. In 2010 she was named the inaugural recipient of the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award. Her fourth novel, My Education, received a 2014 Lambda Literary Award. Her fifth novel, Trust Exercise, and her first book for children, Camp Tiger, came out in 2019. Trust Exercise won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2019. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, Choi teaches fiction writing at Yale and lives in Brooklyn.
2020 Fiction litfest Susan Choi Trust Exercise
Excerpt from Trust Exercise 02.24.2020
Moon Hill
Vigorous activity had always brought him energy, opening a hunger for more. But now ten minutes of walking, even on the treadmill in his apartment, just opened up a desire to be horizontal again. Everything did. His sons told him to rest. The medical tests found nothing.
Translation: The Wangs' Other Child
MARIO MARTZ
To be honest, they've been telling me for a while that one day they'll donate everything, but that day never arrives, and I just keep urging them to do it once and for all: that way they can clear out the room and, more importantly, free themselves of the life contained in those boxes.
You Must Like It All
MATHILDE MEROUANI
I put down my pen, and watched her. I had done that, every now and then, since we were six years old—stopped what I was doing to figure out something about her, to think about her face, or her hair, or the way she always laughed when I talked about death.


Utility companies often need to access buried utility lines. Buried power lines, water mains, sewer systems, and telecommunications cables need to be fixed, added to, or maintained. Before you call in the backhoe or team of shovels, think about the dangers that mechanical excavation methods pose. Have you tried a hydrovac truck?
Hydro excavating is a process that combines pressurized water with an industrial strength vacuum. When used together, a hydrovac can both excavate soil and then move it to another location as well.
What is Hydrovac Used For?
Hydrovac can be used for all kinds of non-destructive digging.
Mainly it is used to excavate buried utility lines, or to visually verify that no buried utility lines exist before mechanical excavation. There's really no better way to "daylight" utility lines than with a hydrovac truck. Backhoes can damage existing underground infrastructure, and in many cases it's actually illegal to dig without first daylighting.
There is no faster or efficient way of digging than hydrovac excavation. On top of that, the water can be heated and used to dig hard frozen ground during the winter months.
Hydrovac crews can also use long extension hoses to reach out-of-the-way spots such as back yards with minimal disruption to lawns and landscaping.
Hydrovac services are also environmentally friendly, as minimal earth is removed. Pin-point holes can be dug quite deep, minimizing the environmental impact. On top of that, the resulting slurry can be separated, and the soil can be returned to the ground after processing.


This is a compilation of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 that shows the text of the law as amended and in force on 1 July 2017 (the compilation date).
This Act may be cited as the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977.
Commonwealth authority means an authority or other body (whether incorporated or not) that is established or continued in existence by or under an Act.
(d) a decision included in any of the classes of decisions set out in Schedule 1.
Note: Regulations for the purposes of section 19 can declare that decisions that are covered by this definition are not subject to judicial review under this Act.
duty includes a duty imposed on a person in his or her capacity as an officer or employee of the Crown.
and, for the purposes of paragraph (a), (b), (c), (ca) or (cb), includes a part of an enactment.
Note: Regulations for the purposes of section 19B can amend Schedule 3 (see section 19B).
failure, in relation to the making of a decision, includes a refusal to make the decision.
Family Court Judge means a Judge of the Family Court (including the Chief Justice, the Deputy Chief Justice or a Senior Judge).
Federal Circuit Court Rules means the Rules of Court made under the Federal Circuit Court of Australia Act 1999.
Federal Court Rules means the Rules of Court made under the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976.
officer of the Commonwealth has the same meaning as in paragraph 75(v) of the Constitution.
order of review, in relation to a decision, in relation to conduct engaged in for the purpose of making a decision or in relation to a failure to make a decision, means an order on an application made under section 5, 6 or 7 in respect of the decision, conduct or failure.
the Family Court means the Family Court of Australia.
the Federal Court means the Federal Court of Australia.
and a reference to a failure to make a decision shall be construed accordingly.
(3) Where provision is made by an enactment for the making of a report or recommendation before a decision is made in the exercise of a power under that enactment or under another law, the making of such a report or recommendation shall itself be deemed, for the purposes of this Act, to be the making of a decision.
(b) a reference to a person aggrieved by conduct that has been, is being, or is proposed to be, engaged in for the purpose of making a decision or by a failure to make a decision includes a reference to a person whose interests are or would be adversely affected by the conduct or failure.
(5) A reference in this Act to conduct engaged in for the purpose of making a decision includes a reference to the doing of any act or thing preparatory to the making of the decision, including the taking of evidence or the holding of an inquiry or investigation.
and, if a document, statement or notice is so posted, then, for the purposes of this Act, the document or statement shall be deemed to be furnished, or the notice shall be deemed to be given, as the case may be, at the time when the document, statement or notice is so posted.
(7) A reference in a Schedule to this Act to another Act (including an Act of a State, the Australian Capital Territory or the Northern Territory) or a provision of another Act shall be read as including a reference to regulations or by‑laws in force under that other Act or for the purposes of that provision, as the case may be.
(7A) If an Act of a State, the Australian Capital Territory or the Northern Territory, or a part of such an Act, described in Schedule 3 applies all or part of another enactment or instrument as a law of the State or Territory, that other enactment or instrument, as so applying, is taken for the purposes of this Act to be included in the Act, or the part of the Act, of the State or Territory.
(b) a decision made, proposed to be made, or required to be made, as the case may be, by a person for the time being acting in, or performing any of the duties of, an office or appointment shall be deemed to be a decision by the holder of that office or appointment.
(8A) For the purposes of a Schedule to this Act, the question whether a body corporate is a subsidiary of another body corporate is to be determined in the same manner as that question is determined under the Corporations Act 2001.
Service includes the Australian Federal Police.
(10) To avoid doubt, a reference in this Act (other than subsections 11(1), (2) and (3)) to an application made to the Federal Court includes, and is taken always to have included, a reference to an application that has come, or that came, before the Federal Court by way of a transfer from the Federal Circuit Court under Part 5 of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia Act 1999.
(b) could have been made directly to the Federal Circuit Court.
(12) For the purposes of paragraph (11)(b), disregard section 19 of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia Act 1999.
(1) ACT enactments are not enactments except to the extent that they are covered by paragraph (ca) or (cb) of the definition of enactment in subsection 3(1).
(2) The Australian Capital Territory (Self‑Government) Act 1988 and the Canberra Water Supply (Googong Dam) Act 1974 are not enactments.
(3) Part IV, sections 29 and 30, subsection 63(2), section 66 and Division 5 of Part X of the Australian Capital Territory Planning and Land Management Act 1988 are not enactments.
(4) Where the whole of an Act or Ordinance is not an enactment, an instrument made under it is not an enactment.
(5) Where part of an Act or Ordinance is not an enactment, an instrument made under the Act or Ordinance, as the case may be, is not an enactment unless made for the purposes of the other part of the Act or Ordinance, as the case may be.
This Act has effect notwithstanding anything contained in any law in force at the commencement of this Act.
(j) that the making of the proposed decision would be otherwise contrary to law.
(b) the person proposes to make the decision on the basis of the existence of a particular fact, and that fact does not exist.
a person who is aggrieved by the failure of the first‑mentioned person to make the decision may apply to the Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court for an order of review in respect of the failure to make the decision on the ground that there has been unreasonable delay in making the decision.
a person who is aggrieved by the failure of the first‑mentioned person to make the decision within that period may apply to the Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court for an order of review in respect of the failure to make the decision within that period on the ground that the first‑mentioned person has a duty to make the decision notwithstanding the expiration of that period.
(1) The Federal Court has jurisdiction to hear and determine applications made to the Federal Court under this Act.
(2) The Federal Circuit Court has jurisdiction to hear and determine applications made to the Federal Circuit Court under this Act.
Note: See also subsections 3(10), (11) and (12).
(d) any other decision given, or any order made, by an officer of the Commonwealth or any other conduct that has been, is being, or is proposed to be, engaged in by an officer of the Commonwealth, including a decision, order or conduct given, made or engaged in, as the case may be, in the exercise of judicial power.
Note: This subsection has effect subject to the Jurisdiction of Courts (Cross‑vesting) Act 1987 and to subsection 1337B(3) of the Corporations Act 2001.
(b) a decision of an administrative character that is included in any of the classes of decisions set out in Schedule 1.
(c) the making of a declaratory order.
(c) the jurisdiction of a court of a State in respect of any matter that is pending before it at the commencement of this Act.
no court has jurisdiction to hear, continue to hear or determine an application under this Act, by the person who is or was the defendant in the prosecution, in relation to a related criminal justice process decision.
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if an applicant has commenced an application under this Act before the commencement of a prosecution for an offence against a law of the Commonwealth, or of a State or a Territory.
(b) a stay of proceedings will not substantially prejudice the applicant.
appeal includes an application for a new trial and a proceeding to review or call in question the proceedings, decision or jurisdiction of a court or judge.
(b) a decision of the Attorney‑General to give a certificate under section 26 or 28 of the National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004 before or during a federal criminal proceeding (within the meaning of that Act) in relation to the offence.
Note: A decision to prosecute a person for an offence is not reviewable under this Act: see paragraph (xa) of Schedule 1.
(1) At any time when a civil proceeding, or an appeal arising out of a civil proceeding, is taking place, no court has jurisdiction to hear, continue to hear or determine an application under this Act, by a person who is or was a party to the proceeding, in relation to a related civil proceeding decision.
appeal includes a proceeding to review or call in question the proceedings, decision or jurisdiction of a court or judge.
civil proceeding has the same meaning as in the National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004.
(ii) a certificate under section 38F or 38H of that Act in relation to the proceeding.
(b) shall be disregarded for the purposes of the application of subsection 6(3) of the Ombudsman Act 1976 and section 40TF of the Australian Federal Police Act 1979.
(ii) that adequate provision is made by any law other than this Act under which the applicant is entitled to seek a review by the court, by another court, or by another tribunal, authority or person, of that decision, conduct or failure.
(3) In this section, review includes a review by way of reconsideration, re‑hearing, appeal, the grant of an injunction or of a prerogative or statutory writ or the making of a declaratory or other order.
(c) shall be lodged with a Registry of the court concerned and, in the case of an application in relation to a decision that has been made and the terms of which were recorded in writing and set out in a document that was furnished to the applicant, including such a decision that a person purported to make after the expiration of the period within which it was required to be made, shall be so lodged within the prescribed period or within such further time as the court concerned (whether before or after the expiration of the prescribed period) allows.
(b) in the case of an application to the Federal Circuit Court—Federal Circuit Court Rules.
(iii) in any other case—the day on which a document setting out the terms of the decision is furnished to the applicant.
if the court is of the opinion that the application was not made within a reasonable time after the decision was made.
and may have regard to such other matters as it considers relevant.
(6) The applicant for an order of review is not limited to the grounds set out in the application but, if he or she wishes to rely on a ground not so set out, the court concerned may direct that the application be amended to specify that ground.
(7) The Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court may, on such terms as it thinks fit, permit a document lodged with a Registry of the court in connection with an application under this Act to be amended and may, if it thinks fit, direct such a document to be amended in a manner specified by the court.
(8) The Federal Court Rules may make provision for and in relation to service on appropriate persons of copies of documents lodged with a Registry of the Federal Court under this Act.
(8A) The Federal Circuit Court Rules may make provision for and in relation to service on appropriate persons of copies of documents lodged with a Registry of the Federal Circuit Court under this Act.
(9) Strict compliance with Federal Court Rules or Federal Circuit Court Rules made for the purposes of this section is not required and substantial compliance is sufficient.
(1) A person interested in a decision, in conduct that has been, is being, or is proposed to be, engaged in for the purpose of making a decision, or in a failure to make a decision, being a decision, conduct or failure in relation to which an application has been made to the Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court under this Act, may apply to the court to be made a party to the application.
(1) Where a person makes a decision to which this section applies, any person who is entitled to make an application to the Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court under section 5 in relation to the decision may, by notice in writing given to the person who made the decision, request him or her to furnish a statement in writing setting out the findings on material questions of fact, referring to the evidence or other material on which those findings were based and giving the reasons for the decision.
(2) Where such a request is made, the person who made the decision shall, subject to this section, as soon as practicable, and in any event within 28 days, after receiving the request, prepare the statement and furnish it to the person who made the request.
(b) apply to the Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court under subsection (4A) for an order declaring that the person who made the request was not entitled to make the request.
and, in either of those cases, the person who gave the notice shall prepare the statement to which the request relates and furnish it to the person who made the request within 28 days after the decision of the court.
make an order declaring that the person who made the request concerned was, or was not, entitled to make the request.
and in any such case the person to whom the request was made shall give to the person who made the request, within 14 days after receiving the request, notice in writing stating that the statement will not be furnished to him or her and giving the reason why the statement will not be so furnished.
(6) For the purposes of paragraph (5)(b), a request for a statement in relation to a decision shall be deemed to have been made within a reasonable time after the decision was made if the Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court, on application by the person who made the request, declares that the request was made within a reasonable time after the decision was made.
(7) If the Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court, upon application for an order under this subsection made to it by a person to whom a statement has been furnished in pursuance of a request under subsection (1), considers that the statement does not contain adequate particulars of findings on material questions of fact, an adequate reference to the evidence or other material on which those findings were based or adequate particulars of the reasons for the decision, the court may order the person who furnished the statement to furnish to the person who made the request for the statement, within such time as is specified in the order, an additional statement or additional statements containing further and better particulars in relation to matters specified in the order with respect to those findings, that evidence or other material or those reasons.
(8) The regulations may declare a class or classes of decisions to be decisions that are not decisions to which this section applies.
(9) Regulations made under subsection (8) may specify a class of decisions in any way, whether by reference to the nature or subject matter of the decisions, by reference to the enactment or provision of an enactment under which they are made, by reference to the holder of the office by whom they are made, or otherwise.
(10) A regulation made under subsection (8) applies only in relation to decisions made after the regulation takes effect.
(c) a decision included in any of the classes of decision set out in Schedule 2.
(iv) the furnishing of which in accordance with the request would be in contravention of an enactment, being an enactment that expressly imposes on the person to whom the request is made a duty not to divulge or communicate to any person, or to any person other than a person included in a prescribed class of persons, or except in prescribed circumstances, information of that kind.
(b) where the statement would be false or misleading if it did not include such information—the first‑mentioned person is not required by section 13 to furnish the statement.
(b) in a case where a statement is not furnished—stating that the statement will not be furnished and giving the reason for not furnishing the statement.
(4) Nothing in this section affects the power of the Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court to make an order for the discovery of documents or to require the giving of evidence or the production of documents to the court.
the following provisions of this section have effect.
(b) where the statement would be false or misleading if it did not include such information—the first‑mentioned person is not required by that section to furnish the statement.
(b) the Court or a Judge may order, on such conditions (if any) as it or he or she thinks fit, a stay of all or any proceedings under the decision.
(2) The Court or a Judge may make an order under subsection (1) of its or his or her own motion or on the application of the person who made the application under section 5.
the Court or a Judge has the same meaning as in the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976.
(b) the Federal Circuit Court of Australia or a Judge may order, on such conditions (if any) as it or he or she thinks fit, a stay of all or any proceedings under the decision.
(2) The Federal Circuit Court of Australia or a Judge may make an order under subsection (1) on its or his or her own initiative or on the application of the person who made the application under section 5.
the Federal Circuit Court of Australia or a Judge has the same meaning as in the Federal Circuit Court of Australia Act 1999.
(b) an order directing any of the parties to do, or to refrain from doing, any act or thing the doing, or the refraining from the doing, of which the court considers necessary to do justice between the parties.
(c) an order directing any of the parties to do, or to refrain from doing, any act or thing the doing, or the refraining from the doing, of which the court considers necessary to do justice between the parties.
(4) The Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court may at any time, of its own motion or on the application of any party, revoke, vary, or suspend the operation of, any order made by it under this section.
(ii) if the decision was made under an enactment referred to in paragraph (ca) or (cb) of that definition—by the Attorney‑General, or by a person he or she authorises for the purpose.
(1) The Attorney‑General may, on behalf of the Commonwealth, intervene in a proceeding before the Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court under this Act.
(2) Where the Attorney‑General intervenes in a proceeding in pursuance of this section, the court may, in the proceeding, make such order as to costs against the Commonwealth as the court thinks fit.
(3) Where the Attorney‑General intervenes in a proceeding in pursuance of this section, he or she shall be deemed to be a party to the proceeding.
(1) Subject to subsection (2), where a proceeding under this Act is pending in the Federal Court, the Federal Court may, on the application of a party to the proceeding or of its own motion, transfer the proceeding to the Family Court.
(2) A proceeding under this Act that is pending in the Federal Court at the commencement of this section shall not be transferred to the Family Court unless the parties to the proceeding consent to the transfer.
(v) any other necessary changes were made.
(4) Where any difficulty arises in the application of paragraphs (3)(c), (d) and (f) in or in relation to a particular proceeding, the Family Court may, on the application of a party to the proceeding or of its own motion, give such directions, and make such orders, as it considers appropriate to resolve the difficulty.
(5) An appeal does not lie from a decision of the Federal Court in relation to the transfer of a proceeding under this Act to the Family Court.
(1) The regulations may declare a class or classes of decisions to be decisions that are not subject to judicial review by the Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court under this Act.
but the making of the regulation does not affect the exclusion by section 9 of the jurisdiction of the courts of the States in relation to such a decision, such conduct or such a failure.
(3) Regulations made for the purposes of subsection (1) may specify a class of decisions in any way, whether by reference to the nature or subject‑matter of the decisions, by reference to the enactment or provision of an enactment under which they are made, by reference to the holder of the office by whom they are made, or otherwise.
(4) A regulation made in pursuance of subsection (1) applies only in relation to decisions made after the regulation takes effect.
(1) The regulations may declare a law, or a part of a law, of the Northern Territory, other than a law, or a part of a law, relating to matters in respect of which the Ministers of the Northern Territory have executive authority under the Northern Territory (Self‑Government) Act 1978, to be an enactment for the purposes of this Act.
Note: Because of paragraphs (ca) and (cb) of the definition of enactment in subsection 3(1), certain laws of the Northern Territory are enactments without the need for a declaration under this subsection.
(2) Regulations made for the purposes of this section have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the law of the Northern Territory concerned or in any other law of the Northern Territory.
(b) a part of such an Act or a class of parts of such Acts.
Note: Schedule 3 identifies Acts of the States, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, and parts of such Acts, that are enactments for the purposes of this Act.
The Governor‑General may make regulations, not inconsistent with this Act, prescribing all matters required or permitted by this Act to be prescribed by regulations or necessary or convenient to be prescribed by regulations for carrying out or giving effect to this Act.
Note: Subdivision 268‑B and section 268‑35 empower the Commissioner to make, reduce and revoke estimates of certain liabilities.
Note: An application under this Act in relation to other criminal justice process decisions cannot be heard or determined in certain circumstances: see section 9A.
(zf) decisions of the Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit Court in the exercise of the functions or powers mentioned in subsection 12(3) or (4) of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia Act 1999.
(zc) decisions of the Minister for Foreign Affairs under Part 8B of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (for this purpose, Minister for Foreign Affairs has the same meaning as in that Act).
Note: See paragraphs (ca) and (cb) of the definition of enactment in subsection 3(1).
This Schedule describes Acts of the States, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, and parts of such Acts, that are enactments for the purposes of this Act.
Note: This Schedule can be amended by the regulations (see section 19B).
(j) the Petroleum (Submerged Lands) Act of the Northern Territory.


Impact of Previous Somatostatin Analogue Use on the Activity of Everolimus in Patients with Advanced Neuroendocrine Tumors: Analysis from the Phase III RADIANT-2 Trial.
Pasireotide in Acromegaly: An Overview of Current Mechanistic and Clinical Data.
Estrogens Suppress Spinal Endomorphin 2 Release in Female Rats in Phase with the Estrous Cycle.
Validation of the Tuebingen CD-25 Inventory as a Measure of Postoperative Health-Related Quality of Life in Patients Treated for Cushing's Disease.
Multitasking in Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Neuron Dendrites.
Incidence of Second Primary Malignancies in Patients with Neuroendocrine Tumours.


text:
You are here: Home / Blog / Television Film locations I (or anyone else) have stumbled across.
Television Film locations I (or anyone else) have stumbled across.
10/06/2019 by hubert rawlinson 97 Comments
Yesterday watching Gentleman Jack I noticed that the room used for the solicitor's office was one I had visited, nay actually worked in. I recognised the painting on the wall and ejaculated loudly "That's Oakwell Hall" as indeed it was.
My place of work was used in Love, Lies and Records (admittedly before I started there). It had been used in Frost previously (and other Yorkshire programmes).
The off license in Muswell Hill was used in Paul Whitehouse's Happiness. ( I visit regularly as my GLW is from there)
Are there places (though some have changed, some forever, not for better) that you've recognised from films or TV standing in for somewhere else where you say Bloody hell look that's dot dot dot?
Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: location location location.
Beezer says
A fair bit, but then I work in central London as a (not very) civil servant so I've been in and out of a few government buildings. There's a bit in 'The Ipcress File' where Harry Palmer uses the side entrance to the Old Admiralty Building on The Mall. I used to be in an out of there quite a lot.
I've recently found myself having to visit yet another department based off Lambeth Bridge, so I have to walk along the same bit of pavement where Ian Carmichael fell over Janette Scott in 'School for Scoundrels' – and – where John Gregson and Dinah Sheridan broke down in the final race in 'Genevieve'
Plus, Mrs Beezer used to work in Maidenhead Town Hall. The main entrance of which made do as the hospital entrance in Carry On Doctor. The bit where Barbara Windsor sashays up the drive.
When we were still living down in Mill Hill, north London, we went to watch Hot Fuzz at the pictures. In the film there's a chase through a garden centre. Although the film is set in the west country we both instantly recognised that they were running through Finchley Nurseries in Mill Hill. It made us happier than it necessarily should have done.
Actually, Finchley Nurseries is behind the National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill, which was used as Arkham Asylum in Batman Begins. To think, with me a big Batman fan, as I slept they were filming the new Batman movie a few hundred yards away. I wish I'd known.
Furthermore, across the road, more or less, from the Institute of Medical Research there's the Adam and Eve pub, which was where they filmed all the pub scenes for BBC's Silks.
Now we've moved to Penistone all we had round here was Jeremy Clarkson and his cronies filming on the showground, just do they could take the piss out of the name.
nicktf says
Also Hot Fuzz, I grew up in Wells, and nearly fell of my chair to see it being the main location used. The alleyways we used to run down as kids, the graveyard where we snuck a bottle of wine, but no opener (smashed the neck off on a gravestone, and then were too afraid to drink because of shards), the hills and woods we'd explored every inch of.m Bishop's Palace (my friends and I once scaled the walls and run across the Bishop's front lawn). Best of all in the pub scenes, I recognized a few of the background extras – all friends of my dad! As I now live some 4000 miles West, it made me rather nostalgic.
Edgar Wright went to Wells Blue School, and would have been a couple of years below me. I hope I didn't flush his head down a toilet or anything.
Me again. I often have to work onsite doing civil servant stuff up at the Met Police College at Hendon. Much of the opening scenes of Hot Fuzz were filmed there, but most of the site has been been knocked down and sold off. Including, to the chagrin of all, the famous skid pan.
And, also, in other Simon Pegg news, as chance would have it, some friends of ours lived on the same estate in Highgate where the girlfriend break up scenes in 'Shaun Of The Dead' were filmed. They lived in the block seen behind Simon Pegg as he attempted to climb in the window of his girlfriend's flat
Much of "Shaun Of The Dead" was filmed at the bottom of our road in Crouch End.
I thought a new pizza shop was opening, but it was set dressing for the film.
I was asked to hold back from going round the corner, one Sunday morning, when off to buy the paper, so I didn't walk into a scene they were shooting.
That happened to me and my wife one our honeymoon in New York. We were told we either had to wait or we could walk across the road if we promised not to stare and point and just walk normally. As I was six months post spinal cord surgery I wasn't walking normally anyway, so we decided to wait. They were filming a scene for a Pink Panther movie with Steve Martin, Jean Reno and Beyonce, so at least we got a couple of interesting snaps for when we were boring everybody's socks off with our holiday photos!
joe robert says
Not so much a television filming location as a Word magazine shoot location.
A few years after I moved on from a London job, there was a work reunion planned for a Saturday evening. The venue was a pub in Shoreditch called The Water Poet.
On the afternoon of the get-together, I was at a loose end at home with a few minutes before I had to leave the house, trying to kill time by playing my guitar. I'd run out of inspiration and couldn't decide what to play – so I let The Word mag decide for me. I picked up the back issue I was reading at the time, flicked through it and stopped on a random page. I was going to see if I could play a song by whatever artist was on that page.
The plan failed, as I landed on an interview with Rick Wakeman and there's no way I can play a song by him. But the picture caption caught my eye: he was at the Water Poet in Shoreditch.
Suggs's sleeve notes to Madness's "The Liberty of Norton Folgate" album mention the Water Poet, too.
At the end of the '80s I worked on a long-term refurbishment job of blocks of flats in Page Street, on the Grosvenor Estate in Pimlico.
It must have been just before we were there that the location was used for scenes in the film "Buster", starring Phil Collins, Julie Walters and Larry Lamb.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_Street
Oxhey Park, on the southern edge of Watford by the big railway arches, bisected by the River Colne, is where Dirty Den Watts got shot in Eastenders.
mrxsg says
I remember the railway arches. They're at the bottom of Pinner Road where I lived as a kid in the 70s.
Another place I've remembered.
1-3 Middle Row W10, off Kensal Road near the top end of Ladbroke Grove. We were doing some work on a couple of old mews cottages in the late '80s, next door to what was then a marble supplier's yard, The Kensington Marble Company. The owner of the marble yard proudly informed us it was previously the location for Steptoe and Son's yard.
The cottages are still there but the marble yard has since been demolished and replaced by a nondescript office block.
The outside of the house where I lived in Bristol (Clifton) was used in Shoestring. It was supposed to be his home.
Ah yes, and when he got to the end of the road and turned left, he was in Bedminster, as if by magic.
Where in Clifton? I used to live by the baths (which seem to be something called "Lido" now), and The Victoria pub. I did get yelled at by none other than Tony Robinson when attempting to leave my office in Park Place while they filmed a scene in an alleyway outside. I think it was a pilot where he played a detective. Also, avoiding Casualty shoots was a regular occurrence.
Royal York Crescent. No. 10 to be exact.
I used to live in Cliftonwood Crescent near 'The Lion' pub- another regular location.
Baldrick used to drink in there too. I lived in Bellevue Crescent when I first moved to Brizzle, and The Lion was effectively my local, there or the Eldon.
NigelT says
I used to live in Rodney Place (1974 – 1978), then Redland for a bit – happy days. Clifton was just starting to get gentrified but was still mostly a student and bohemian place – record shops, great pubs, artists, jewellers etc. I shared a flat with a jazz musician – I developed an aversion to the trombone!
Turtleface says
Back in the mid 90s, I worked at an independent record distributor based in Tottenham. It was basically a warehouse with an office at the side where the sales folk tried to persuade record shops to take our stuff and I was doing account-y type stuff. Anyway – it was used in Crocodile Tears (with Jimmy Nail) and they tarted the pretty scruffy place up with pot plants and such and gave the impression that the CDs/Records were actually manufactured and distributed from the same place. I think it was on screen for about 10 seconds.
Almost Simon says
I was born in Surrey. my mum is from Shepperton, my dad later revealed he had been an extra as a child in a film made at Shepperton (still trying to search the clip,)
But anyway, as an 8 year old (1979/80) both I and my dad clearly remember visiting Chobham Common where they were then filming Superman II. For some strange reason you could actually enter the set, we went one evening and took a roll of photo's – sadly long since lost. They had the cars and everything there, assume Terence Stamp had probably been filming there that very afternoon. Was very cool to later see the film and the set we'd walked around. Someone has made a fan vid of some of the scenes – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wHnNyhf2bg
I need to have a think about some of the others, loads of stuff filmed near where we lived but Superman II is the one I clearly remember.
Diddley Farquar says
On a trip to Languedoc we headed to the coast one day and found ourselves on a beach with what one might call beach huts only these were gigantic compared to what one gets in the UK. They are on stilts and Betty Blue and her man are painting one such dwelling in that movie, somewhat déshabillé as I recall.
Living in Oxford as I did, the city is an oft used setting. Morse being the obvious example. Of course they cut out all the shitty shopping streets, selecting only the most photogenic areas, like selective memory. Judicious editing allows Morse's Jag to make impossible journeys across town to maintain the picturesque backdrop.
For unpicturesque backdrops, an area not far from where my mum lives in Sheffield was regularly used by Shane Meadows when he was filming his 'This is England' series, as it is quite run down, so easily passes as the 70s or 80s.
We recently had a campaign to save a local pub, not far from where we are. as it was used as the local pub in the later series of Last of the Summer Wine. The real landlord had a running battle with local residents, after he decided he'd use the pub to display his works of modern art, which meant a few broken hoovers and chairs, etc, randomly scattered about the car park. He even invited people to graffiti all over the pub, and not in the artful early 80s New York Hip Hop style! So the place looked like a derelict pub for years before it actually became one.
kingtim says
Morse seconded! I lived in Coombe Road in Jericho which featured in the first episode 'The Dead of Jericho'. However, each room wasn't large enough to comfortably accommodate a piano and the pub at the end of the road wasn't a South London strip pub. I may have misremembered the last part.
fortuneight says
If my memory serves, they did use the actual police station for exterior shots
davebigpicture says
This is the allotment directly behind my childhood home. West Harrow allotments although our house was North Harrow.
https://youtu.be/S4iPNyd7p68
The Legal And General building in Kingswood, Surrey stood in for a cryogenic preservation centre, supposedly in California, in the last series of New Tricks. It was closed a couple of years ago. On the same site, St Monica's was accommodation and a training centre but it had previously been a real life school and on film, St Trinians.
Slug says
I moved down to the south coast a year ago from Pinner (which, despite being his home town, is not really featured in the new Elton biopic) but Mrs Slug's youngest sister attends Ruislip High School – which is the school in The Inbetweeners, and the exteriors in this clip were shot in Pinner High Street.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtMMq0M5R3U
Pinner used to be good for a pub crawl if you didn't include The George.
Twang says
"Doc Foster" is filmed in Hitchin so lots of places I know pop up.
"Life Begins" with Caroline Quentin and Alexander Armstrong was filmed in St. Albans when I lived there. We used to go to the same coffee shop!
The gatehouse of St Albans Registry Office was the Front Gate for Slade Prison
A very short walk from where I'm sitting in Foxy Towers is this little church, which doesn't really have a tower:
That's Hayley Mills, and her co-star was Ian McShane – the film, a sweet little English romance directed by her dad, is called "Sky West and Crooked".
…The little dog in the picture does look a little like Lovejoy-era McShane, funnily enough.
This is long before Lovejoy!
Friend of mine used to live in Caversham Park Village near the house where the interior shots for The Plank were filmed – there's a blue plaque there now.
Presumably anybody under 45 envisions The Plank as being a film about somebody who gets half-way through a push-up and can't seem to get down again.
thecheshirecat says
The eponymous grinning feline was inked into my arm in the tattoo parlour in Royston Vasey, I mean Hadfield, Derbyshire.
I used to live in Cardiff. Doctor Who was basically a diary of my walk to work.
The fountain scene in Babel was just down the road from my apartment in Tokyo.
Got a bit freaked out when I rewatched the Motorhead episode of The Young Ones recentishly and realised the train station they were running to is Temple Meads.
Not an accidental spot, but my wife and I sought out the cafe that Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy go to in Before Sunset (spoiler: it's nowhere bloody near where the film would have you believe it is).
There was an old Monty Python sketch where the screen was tilted 90 degrees and the Pythons were "mountain climbing" a pavement. That was New Malden High Street, where I grew up.
Oo! oo! Me too!! My parents lived on Traps Lane. Remember Cannings the toy shop?
Ah yes, I remember Cannings and know Traps Lane too. We lived in Queen's Road, off Burlington Road. What period? I was born in 1955. My parents lived there until they died. I sold the old house in 2002.
Did you know that Sandy Denny went to Coombe Girls' School? John Martyn and Peter Green were born there (well, Kingston Hospital, like me).
I was born in '61 in Wimbledon. Mum died in '73 and dad only a year and a half later. My elder brother became my legal guardian and then I lived at his place in north London till I turned 17. But New Malden will always feel like my home town.
I went to Clarence Avenue infants, which was right next door to Coombe Girls School.
I was aware of John Martyn, but I'd always thought Peter Green was an East Ender? Another definite New Malden born musician is Dave Swarbrick. Also Eric Clapton used to frequent the Prince of Wales on the Kingston Road in the early 60s.
Sorry to hear about the tragic loss of your parents so young. That would have been dreadful and life altering. So perhaps New Malden is a fondly remembered golden age of innocence for you? It was a good place to grow up with Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park within walking or biking distance, and later the Toby Jug and Kingston Poly were great music venues – I saw some amazing shows at those places including David Bowie at both.
You may be right about Peter Green: born in Bethnal Green according to Wiki. There is some New Malden connection I know – maybe he lived there later. I remember the Prince Of Wales – my older cousin tooke me to a strip show there! It was a real sleazy place then. You know I didn't know about Dave Swarbrick, although by coincidence I knew him a little. He lived here in Coventry for years.
I live on the south coast now but visit New Malden very regularly as I'm an AFC Wimbledon season ticket holder. The Prince of Wales was indeed a bit basic! It's been closed for a couple of years now but is still standing. The Toby Jug has a definite place in music history, and even though I was too young at the time, my brother used to go there and also hung out at the Charrington Bowl ten-pin alley in Tolworth. Did you know that The Fountain pub shut down about six months ago and is due to be demolished for flats?
My Dad played full back for the other Wimbledon many years ago. He was a postman in New Malden like for ever; he probably delivered to Traps Lane. Actually, come to think of it so did I. I did the post at Christmas about 72-73 time. Jimmy Tarbuck lived up there somwhere. I had to get him to sign for something and he told me to fuck off. Nice guy.
I didn't know the Fountain had closed. At least Frederick W Paine Undertakers is still there – or isn't it? I haven't been back to NM for a few years. I was arrested in the Fountain once. I looked like some felon and got hauled over the road to the cop shop. My Dad had to bring my passport down to prove my ID.
Apologies to other Afterwordies reading this unabashed nostalgia!
The "original" Wimbledon, please, not the "other" Wimbledon! It's the same club as far as the fans are concerned. The original was stolen from us by that soul-less concrete new town in Bucks! Which years did your dad play for us?
Paine the undertakers is still trading, but the cop shop became a pub years ago, and probably took most of Fountain's trade.
Also sorry to those AF'ers with zero interest in obscure south-west London suburbs. We'll get a room next time.
Which years? No idea, but my Dad would have been 99 last week so there's some parameters. The cop shop a pub? Really? Good god. And they're still trading and the Fountain is derelict? Blimey.
Off to bed.
Hamlet says
The BBC did a post-apocalyptic drama a few years' ago. They filmed quite a few scenes outside my local Tesco…they didn't even bother trying to make it look any worse.
Billybob Dylan says
I live in San Pedro, 30 miles from Hollywood. We have the harbor, the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach right down the road. There have been hundreds of TV shows and movies filmed here. You can't go out on a Saturday night without bumping into a camera crew somewhere in town.
Living in Belfast large parts of Line of Duty are very familiar.
When I lived in London, The Bill used a flat I was co-habiting for filming. Druggies squalid abode when on screen, which to be brutal was pretty good type casting.
I can remember taking a Geography field trip to Ivinghoe Beacon and coming across none other than Whoopi Goldberg taking a break from filming something called The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns in a neighbouring field.
mikethep says
Our house in Brisbane is on the books of Queensland Film Locations – a woman turned up on the doorstep one day on a hunch and asked to look at it. It's a nice little earner, and tax-free too – you're allowed to claim it as a hobby, weirdly enough.
It's mostly ads, but if you watch a frankly bonkers Netflix show called Tidelands you can see people having wild sex in our kitchen, and a bloke putting his undercrackers on in our bedroom in exactly the same spot I do.
It starred Elsa Pataky (Mrs Chris Hemsworth) and when she was spotted in our front yard the rumour mill went into overdrive. People in the local Facebook group were swearing blind he'd been seen in our street when he was in fact in LA. Interesting illustration of how fake news gets going.
atcf says
I live about half a mile from where BBC daytime soap Doctors is filmed. My wife and I went for a walk a few months ago and were surprised to find ourselves passing the Mill Health Centre.
Gatz says
I often look out for these locations, and of course in London it's hard to cross the street without finding one. This is me outside the secret headquarters in Killing Eve, just off Trafalgar Square. No autographs, thank you.
Glad it's not just me then!
We were going for a day out around Bakewell, which is always a treat in itself, but we went for a walk in Dovedale first. I'm a fan of zombie films and they filmed a scene from The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue on the stepping stones, so me and the kids posed for photos, taking turns at being the zombie. We then went to the church in Hathersage, where they also filmed a zombie attack in the movie. We were surprised to find that Little John (as in one of Robin Hood's merry men) is buried there.
Zanti Misfit says
This is my local cinema in Holloway. Even if you're not from this manor, it.s still a great sketch to enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3j-Zv-cDVQ
Sitheref2409 says
I worked in the office block featured in the shooting of President Bartlet.
myoldman says
I remember about 20 years ago walking into the Bradbury building in Los Angeles and having it suddenly dawn on me that it was the same building as the one used in the closing stages of Blade Runner.
Also when I lived in Bristol I remember walking into the Cock of The North pub and realising it was the Kebab and Calculator from the Young Ones
Memorably played by Madness!
They should have sampled the line "You hum it… I'll smash yer face in"
Cock of the North was an ugly pub, looks like it's still there, but renamed and refurbed. Couldn't really see the Young Ones being able to afford a place in leafy Henleaze
IanP says
The office of MrsP's architecture firm featured in Catastrophe when the fella tried to become a male model.
I seem to remember spotting at least one member of staff featuring in the background.
MrsP was most taken aback to arrive at work one day to find Sharon Horgan sitting in reception.
Not for from me there is a short heritage railway line, covering the stretch from Epping to Ongar where the London Underground Central Line no longer runs. A while ago it was rented out to be used as the set for a porn film, much to local consternation. I picture some bloke with his trousers round his ankles having his concentration broken by the thought, 'Hang on a moment … is that Ongar through that window?'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-32149393
Johnny99 says
I used to work in Croydon and our car park and the road next to it was always being used as a set for "The Bill".
I'm led to believe that "Dr Who" used to be filmed at a sandpit about a mile away from me on the road to Reigate and the BBC used a lot of locations around this area for the series.
The first wedding in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" was filmed at St Michaels Church Betchworth a few miles west of here.
Milkybarnick says
Oooh, you're not far from me then (I'm in Redhill).
I've been wondering if it's the Doctor Who quarry that's now a lake with a beach on that keeps popping up on one of our local Facebook parents pages as a place to visit. Just imagining having a picnic there while imagining it as Skaro or something.
On a slight tangent, the houses in the video below are in Reigate (off one of the roads up Reigate Hill towards Junction 8 of the M25). A mate at mine at school said at the time he was kept awake by INXS filming a video down his road. Took years to find it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zvV96CatDE
And while I'm on pop videos, a good chunk of the Beautiful South's "Good as Gold" video was filmed around Bletchingley and Godstone which is only a few miles down the road.
The Bill used to do a lot of filming in Wandsworth too.
They almost caused a major incident when filming a scene in the (former) Arndale Centre car park.
People with guns were spotted in the car park with the result that Met Police Armed Response were deployed. The producers hadn't put the relevant information out. Nobody was hurt, though I suspect someone on the production side may have got a severe arse kicking.
A similar thing happened in my area a month ago or so, despite the production company having gotten the permits to film scenes for a crime series, with fake guns; all the relevant information given to the police.
Someone saw a guy running in the street with a gun and called the cops, who showed up quickly and wrestled the popular young actor to the ground, before the mistake was cleared up. That could have gone really wrong…
I used to commute through Marylebone Station, which was often taken over by film crews.
As a tourist in LA I was on my way back from Mann's Chinese Theatre and saw a large film crew, for what turned out to be "Speed". After an hour of watching more or less nothing happen I gave up.
Marylebone Station was taken over by the Hard Day's Night film crew, IIRC.
makem.ken says
Few years ago my partner and I were down in Brighton and I was keen to find the alley where Jimmy takes Steph to escape the rioting mods and rockers, and as featured on the cover of the soundtrack for Quadrophenia. Knew I was in the vicinity as we went down a few backstreets, and then suddenly there it was. At that exact moment someone opened a nearby backdoor to put some rubbish out, saw me standing there and said "yes that's the place". Obviously not uncommon for people to turn up there looking for it. Also went into the backyard where Steph and Jimmy ended up. Did not replicate their subsequent shenanigans however.
Living 20 minutes from Brighton, I can confirm that the tiny alleyway off East Street is as much a tourist attraction as the pier or the Pavillion. In fact there's now a proper council street sign up on the wall there; officially it is 'Quadrophenia Alley'.
Readers interested in taking their partner there and replicating the film's youthful frolics are advised that your ardour may well be expunged rapidly by the constant and overwhelming stench of piss. Particularly romantic on hot days.
Barry Blue says
Bella Union record and coffee shop, usually staffed by the ever so pleasant Simon Raymonde, is along an adjoining 'twitten'. I suspect he regularly has to give directions to ageing mods eager to take their girlfriends up the alley.
Another Will Smith says
I'm from Chester which has a lot of possible attractive, historical settings but I've only ever seen it in Hollyoaks and an episode of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series which I find quite surprising. I guess there isn't that much historical film or TV these days.
My Dad used to help out on the Ten Tors walk on Dartmoor. He once emerged on foot from a dense Forestry Commission plantation, to find himself surrounded by a rag tag bunch of American Revolutionaries engaged in a furious musket exchange with Redcoats. "CUT!" went the shout, and a clipboard-clutching film crew member hurried him away, out of shot. "Sorry about this, we're in the middle of filming. That's Mr. Pacino over there." he said, indicating a figure in the middle distance. To which my father replied, with a puzzled frown, "Who's Mr. Pacino?".
I live at the quiet end of a dead-end street in central Stockholm, and it's been regularly used for filming (mostly television it seems). Notes asking for flats to borrow for location shoots are often stuck to the doors in this area, and every now and then I've walked out of the building to find a part of the street shut off and people with clip-boards preventing the public from running into shot.
I've yet to spot any of it on TV however, because it seems to be mainly a location for crime/cop shows, and I'm not a big fan of those in general. Since the street has gotten a bit more gentrified and spruced up in recent years and lost some of its shabbier charm, they don't film here as often…
I made a special trip to Pennan, where most of the village location sets for Local Hero were filmed. Supposed to epitomise a West Highland coastal village it is in, Aberdeenshire. On the east. Fabulous place, mind, and very evocative of a favourite film.
fentonsteve says
Aberdeen rellies tell me of excitement in Pennan as BT wanted to remove the red phone box.
Nick L says
I live in Sunbury, just across the river from Walton on Thames, where many outside Monty Python sketches were filmed. In Sunbury itself, various street scenes from The Inbetweeners (very popular with the young people I understand) were shot.
Black Celebration says
I grew up in that general area but couldn't quite narrow it down to where exactly it was filmed so thanks for that. The episode at Thorpe Park suported my theory that it was filmed around there.
The Monty Python sketch where we follow the boring day in the life of an accountant was filmed at the newsagent around the corner from our house. It's a pretty memorable scene.
hubert rawlinson says
I've remembered a few others.
Visiting my father one night I found that the street down from Batley Station ( known to the Hep's dad fact fans) was a stand in for war torn Berlin for the filming of Shine on Harvey Moon.
Round the corner was used in the film Blow Dry.
Years ago Diana Dors 'visited' for the film Value for Money (actually she stayed back in the studio). A brass band was seen marching up the same street.
A friend's Halifax house was fleetingly seen in a scene from the History Boys.
The Piece Hall in Halifax was used for a scene in Brassed Off, unfortunately you just miss seeing another friend's old record shop there.
deramdaze says
Film location.
"The Likely Lads."
The Newcastle library scene, where Bob is pissed after the "pub closing down" scene and drops a dart board on Thelma's foot, was filmed at the library in Elstree/Boreham Wood (does anyone know the difference?).
Still a library about 7 years ago, and ABSOLUTELY as it was in the film when I did research there … now no longer serving that function.
Rather pleasingly, picked up a dvd of the film in a Boreham Wood/Elstree High Street chareeddee shop after a Boreham Wood home match.
Unsurprisingly, given the proximity of the studios, there's been loads of things filmed around Borehamwood's streets, especially on the main shopping drag, Shenley Road.
In the original 'Bedazzled' with Pete & Dud, the Wimpy Bar where Dudley Moore works as a cook lusting after waitress Eleanor Bron was at 108 Shenley Road, a stone's throw from Elstree Studios.
Elstree becomes Borehamwood once you get past the station. Elstree is mostly posh and Borehamwood mostly isn't.
I was told by somebody I did some work there for "The trouble with Borehamwood is that everyone is either a gangster or else they think they're a gangster."
That can't be entirely true as my sister, her daughter and her youngest son (and their respective families) all live there. They are not gangsters as far as I know.
Living in Portland, all of Portlandia, obviously. Also Grimm, not sure if that made it to the UK, but it was kind of OK for the first season.
Portlandia caused an interesting "art mirroring life" spat- the feminist bookshop skits were filmed in an actual Feminist bookstore, who fell out with them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ch1kXp3mQA
Summary of spat here
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/30/496072761/feminist-bookstore-slams-portlandia-and-says-show-can-no-longer-film-there
The bookstore\Community Center has since closed, citing, amongst other factors "…an inability to "reform and re-envision" a space founded on "white, cis feminism (read: white supremacy)" to make it more reflective of contemporary feminism."
Portlandia was like a documentary of the East side of the city.
I used to work in Sea Containers House on the South Bank in London when it was offices prior to its sell off and revamp as a luxury hotel. The walk to and from there to the nearby Waterloo Station took me along Roupel Street, which is a well-preserved row of 1930's brick built terraced houses..
It's been used relentlessly for pretty much everything with that period flavour. One of which was 'Call The Midwife'. I happened across a shoot for the first series. I asked one of the runners what was being filmed. 'A new series called Call The Midwife. It's all about midwifes', he said. And he was right.
I had a girlfriend who had a flat share behind The Young Vic in the mid 90s so The Kings Arms in Roupel Street was my weekday local. We spent the weekdays in Waterloo and the weekends in Godalming, where I lived at the time.
Small world. Though I wouldn't want to wallpaper it.
Yes, I've been in the Kings Arms a few times.
Also, ITV Studios were just round the corner. I sometimes saw Graham Norton walking his two massive dogs around the area.
Worthing pier crops up a fair bit as it's largely unchanged and has a 1930s clock and facade. The Lido next door was used in Stan and Ollie.
Worthing's promenade and the lovely old Dome Cinema feature in the Emily Lloyd comedy/drama 'Wish You Were Here'. A great film, regardless of where it was shot.
Worthing unchanged? They've got a Labour councillor now. When I grew up there in the 60s/70s/80s they used to hang them.
Also the Dolphins from the Dolphinarium in Brighton were put in the Lido when their pool was being repaired in the 70s.
There's 18 Labour councillors in Worthing & Adur now. It's a quiet revolution.
The place'll have a Green MP before too long just because Brighton's got one.
The Tories and Lib Dem's haven't done much for the town since I moved here in 2002.
Living in Manchester and watching Cold Feet in the 90s you would be distracted by trying to spot the location. Loads of scenes around St Peters square / Central library. The office used by David was actually the mezzanine floor in the Bridgewater Hall. you can clearly see the Midland Hotel through the window. In the re-boot series of a couple of years ago Adams flat was at the top of King Street but in the final scene when they went onto the roof they actually used the roof garden of the Midland Hotel….
Friends of mine live in Bray, near Dublin. This was only a year or so ago. She is out with the kids one weekday morning walking on the seafront. From a distance she can see four men walking around a bit aimlessly. As she gets closer she realises its is Messrs Vox, Edge, Clayton and Mullen.
As she walks past a voice says "how goes it?" She says "ah grand" in reply and walks on. She sees a small van parked up with camera equipment in it and assumes there's a photo shoot going in. Anton Corbijn? She didn't know. He might have been in the toilet.
I haven't stumbled across any TV locations @hubert-rawlinson. Good luck with that hamper though.
When I worked in London, I used to buy my lunchtime sandwich from Speedy's Cafe on North Gower Street. Next door is used as the Baker Street residence of the BBC's Sherlock.
When I was a kid living in south Manchester, our house was used in a one off drama. It was something like Play for Today, but I can't remember whether it was the BBC or Granada. Our house was chosen because of the proximity of a nearby school. As a kid it was all very exciting, with giant lights in our hallway, and crew all over the place. I'd love to find out the name of the play. I can't even remember the year, but it was probably 1979 or 1980. The house was only on screen for ten seconds or so.
According to Wikiedpia, and specifically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_programmes_set,_produced_or_filmed_in_Manchester there was a one-off play called 'Comedians' made in 1975?
Thanks. Yes, I've seen that list, but its far from exhaustive, and probably won't include incidental Manchester locations (i.e the play is not specifically set there). Also, I'm pretty sure it was around the turn of the decade. I've decided to use the BBC Genome to trawl through old copies of the Radio Times, in case something triggers a memory. This evening I was looking at the first six months of 1981. Play for Today was on BBC One, Tuesday evenings, after the Nine o'clock News. Bavarian Nights, starring Bob Peck and Sarah Badel, was broadcast on March 31. The description goes thus: 'When the dynamic young head-master of St Peter 's Primary School decides to liven up a parents' fund-raising social by hiring a Bavarian band, he little suspects the hidden passions that are about to be unleashed.' Sounds like an early contender, but I'd need to actually see the thing again to confirm. There is a short clip on Youtube, but I don't remember the plot at all.
No worries. I've just had a look at the 'Play For Today' page on IMDB. I had no idea they were so regular, and just assumed they were occasional 'one-off' productions.
This comment has more than a hint of hamper about it. But, for the record, it's Bavarian Night, not Bavarian Nights.
Yes, I'm not sure how many were made in total, but I'm guessing somewhere in the hundreds. They ran for 14 years, I think.1970-1984.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl