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LMGI COMPASS
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Spring 2019
Flying Down
to Whitehall:
Historic Locations Bring
British Stories to Life
by Jim Collee
"Votes for women!" The cry emanated from the Heavens, and a
sudden "shower of handbills" descended upon the all-male heads
of the House of Commons. A young woman unfurled a banner
from the balcony above. "Mr. Speaker!" she shouted. "We have
listened too long to the illogical utterances of men who know not
what they say! We demand this government—" whereupon the
sergeant-at-arms slapped a meaty hand across her mouth and
gave a masculine yank. No go. Miss Helen Fox had padlocked
herself to the banister. "For 40 years, we have listened behind this
grille. We, the women of England!—" And then—crack—the whole
thing gave way. Women, police, sergeants-at-arms, and locksmiths
tumbled to the gallery floor.
Almost 100 years later, location manager Harriet Lawrence, LMGI
had a script in her hand titled Suffragette, written by Abi Morgan
and directed by Sarah Gavron. The story of women's right to vote
in the UK, including a rush on the House of Commons by dozens
of suffragettes. "And it's brutal," says Harriet. "The police actually
beat the suffragettes from horseback. It was quite violent."
There was only one problem. No one had ever been filmed
in the House of Commons. "And people asked, 'are we going to
Parliament?'" With trucks and crew and horses and "silly women"
like Miss Helen Fox hanging from balconies? Knowing there were
a handful of places that could double for Parliament—Manchester
Town Hall, for example, had sufficed in The Iron Lady with Meryl
Streep as Margaret Thatcher—Harriet boldly replied, "Why don't
we give it a go?" And the thinking quickly became—Why not? Let's
humor Harriet! Let's let her go for tea with someone in Parliament!
And it sort of grew. After a couple of months I began to think, 'This
might be possible.'
The landscapes of the United Kingdom are layered with deep
time, from buried Roman mosaics to the bluestones of Stonehenge.
Monuments to history—whether Neolithic, Tudor, Elizabethan
or Art Deco—are everywhere. "We're sort of littered with these
things," says location manager Pat Karam, LMGI, who had to
straddle 400 years of British nation building when he sandwiched
location duties for Mary Queen of Scots (2018) between Seasons 2
and 3 of The Crown.
The UK 2013 tax credit was extended to include high-end
television, and with the drop in the pound and the turbo-boosting
spends of Netflix & Sons, there's been a flood of US productions.
Historic properties are often used and reused, especially within
the 20- to 30-mile radius of the M25 motorway encircling greater
London. "If you've got a big country pile within striking distance
of London, you do very well," says Pat.
