Tom Hardy and producer Ridley Scott have joined forces to keep us at home on Saturday nights and glued to BBC One for Taboo – a new series written by Hardy and his father Chips, that starts on January 7th. Here’s the trailer.
Tom Hollander, Jonathan Pryce, Oona Chaplin and Mark Gatiss are among the prestigious co-stars. The stunning Palladian villa in Bexley, Danson House, was used for many scenes, over a few days filming in November last year with 120 cast and crew.
Concert scenes were filmed in the sumptuous rooms, including horses and carriages arriving with guests through the grounds. And the cellar doubled as St Barts Hospital.
FilmFixer manages the film office service for Bexley Council, along with Southwark, Camden and Islington Councils, where filming for this lush production took place between November 2015 and June 2016.
FilmFixer director Karen Everett says, “There’s a great deal of preparation required for filming in historic homes. Being Grade 1 listed, protecting Danson House was a major priority for us, before filming could go ahead.
“Special terms and conditions ensured the drama could be recreated in this ideal period location – while at the same time, the mansion itself would be safe and treated respectfully.
“Its attraction to the production was obvious. The restored mansion is in exquisite condition, it’s of the appropriate period, and it’s set in 200-acres of parkland (designed by Capability Brown’s assistant) including a 12-acre lake. On top of this, it was actually built for a sugar merchant and vice-chairman of the British East India Company, a Sir John Boyd. The British East India Company features heavily in the series.”
Tom Hardy is playing James Keziah Delaney, who, despite being presumed dead, has returned to London after 10 years in Africa. He must avenge his father, who has been deceived and destroyed by the East India Company.
The replica of Francis Drake’s Golden Hinde, moored in the Thames off Southwark, was used for some of the shipboard scenes.
And Southwark’s Trinity Church Square hosted horses and carriages collecting guests from a theatre performance in the Square’s Georgian, Henry Wood Hall. Generous donations were made to the residents association to thank them.
In Islington the eerie House of Detention on Sans Walk provided claustrophobic scenes of hardship. Charterhouse and Charterhouse Square were also used. And period boats pass through the Islington tunnel on the Grand Union tow path.
In Camden, filming took place in the former Central St Martin’s building.