As you might know, I’m currently writing a series of mysteries set in London in 1893. One of my most helpful assistants in this task is a large set of road maps of the city from 1888. Apart from giving me routes and distances, it’s interesting to see how many places and streets have changed or changed names over time. I lived in London for over 12 years so know parts of it pretty well, and now you’re wondering where this is leading.
It’s leading to a couple of nights ago when we watched a comedy action film that was all about a reluctant hero being recruited as a spy/assassin/agent/etc. by his high school sweetheart. You know the kind of thing, with a mad plot, lots of CGI, and a fun way to waste 90 minutes. The thing is, part of it was set in London, and there was lots of outdoor filming giving me a good chance to bore Neil with comments such as, ‘I used to walk past there,’ and ‘I had dinner there once,’ and ‘That’s where we went to see Donald Sutherland in that play,’ and so on. It also gave me a chance to have a good laugh, not because of the script or acting, which were fine, but because of the editing.
I won’t be alone in this. In what? In being unable to ignore it when the story moves from location A to D without going through B and C. If you’ve ever watched ‘Pascali’s Island’ (1988, James Dearden), you will have noticed how Ben Kingsley enters his house on Symi, sees the sea out of the window, leaves his front door, and steps into Rhodes Old Town. Well, in the other night’s film, we had a similar thing, only it was a car chase.
We started off at the Savoy, ‘That’s where we saw that play with Donald Sutherland…’ Actually, I had a friend who worked in the box office there, so I saw loads of shows at the Savoy Theatre (‘It opened on your sister’s birthday but in 1881’) including ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ with Ernie Wise, Lulu, and a selection of endings the audience had to vote for. All very odd.
Anyway, our reluctant hero leaves the Savoy driving on the right. (The privately owned Savoy Court is the only road in the UK that I know of where you drive on the right. This is partly due to ladies of old usually sitting behind their carriage driver, and at the Savoy, they could step from the carriage and enter the hotel without having to walk around the vehicle.) Our hero, though, turns right and continues to drive on the right when he enters Strand because he is American. When his high-school sweetheart points out he’s on the wrong side of the road and he nearly takes down a black cab, he has to drive across the central thingy outside Couts Bank, which causes us great hilarity. They are heading for somewhere in West London, so why he is heading east is anyone’s guess. As is why he is, in the next shot, driving north across the Thames. Presumably, he’s done a very quick ‘round the block’ over Waterloo Bridge, and come north again via the Hungerford Bridge because he’s now coming up Northumberland Avenue to Trafalgar Square, some 0.4 miles from the Savoy had he turned left from the hotel and not gone on a tour of Southwark. Oh, and clearly, no-one told the director that the Hungerford Bridge is a rail and foot bridge only, but by now, we’ve not only suspended our disbelief, but we’ve had it hung, drawn and quartered.
And so it goes on. Up The Mall one way, down Pall Mall the other for no reason, past the Post Office tower, a quick glimpse of St Pancras Station, and just around the next corner and we’re in Lancaster Gate. If only travel in London was so fast and so picturesque.
Anyway… My travel today will be closer to home, as we have a lunch appointment in Yialos with a couple of grown-up godsons. Before then, there is the obligatory typing to be done and this post to post. Happy driving!
