Director / Writer: Neil Maskell Starring: Jenna Coleman, Tom Burke, Amit Shah, Roger Evans, Sura Dohnke Production Company: MarVista Entertainment, Erebus Pictures Kent Locations Used: Tunbridge Wells, Teise and Coffee in Lamberhurst
The couple are joined by Chris and Glynn, two ex-army close protection security guards, contracted to protect the pair from dangerous forces determined to stop them from sharing their story. As they wait in the secluded house for the journalist coming to interview them, the unlikely foursome share personal histories and connect with each other in surprising ways.
Written and directed by Neil Maskell (Bull (2021), Level Up (2016)) in his directorial debut, Klokkenluider – which means ‘whistleblower’ in Dutch – is a blackly comic, character‑driven political thriller that will shock and entertain.
During filming, production visited Tunbridge Wells to film short scenes in Claremont Gardens and Town Hill Road. Production also filmed at Teise and Coffee café in Lamberhurst, which doubles for a patisserie in Belgium.
Set in the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Tunbridge Wells is an historic spa town that offers a mix of independent shops and restaurants set alongside the colonnaded Pantiles and the picturesque High Street. The area is renowned for its period houses and gardens and has been a place of interest for over 400 years. Recently Britannia Series 3 (2021) and This Way Up Season 2 (2021) TV series filmed here.
Klokkenluider (2023) will be releasing in select UK cinemas on Friday 1st September 2023.
Writer: Jack Lothian
Starring: Evin Ahmad, Sean Teale, Douglas Henshall, Susannah Fielding, Indica Watson
Production Company: Left Bank Pictures
Kent Locations Used: Folkestone Harbour, Grand Burstin Hotel
Who Is Erin Carter? (2023) follows Erin Collantes, a British teacher living a quiet life in Spain. When she’s caught up in a supermarket robbery and the robbers seem to recognise her, her family realise there might be more to Erin than meets the eye.
Various scenes for Episode 1 of the series were filmed in Folkestone, including on the Harbour Arm, The Stade and the Grand Burstin Hotel.
Folkestone is a seaside town with elegant clifftop promenade, lower coastal park, fishing harbour and Victorian cliff-top lifts. Other productions who have filmed there recently include Pistol (2022), The Fight (2019) and Seagull (2018).
Who Is Erin Carter? (2023) will be released on Netflix on Thursday 24th August 2023.
Creator: Simon Kinberg, David Weil Starring: Golshifteh Farahani, Shioli Kutsuna, Shamier Anderson, Billy Barratt
Production Company: Genre Films, K Films, Platform One Media
Kent Locations Used: Dover, Eurotunnel
Invasion (2023) is an American sci-fi series set during the aftermath of an alien invasion and seen through the eyes of five ordinary people across the globe.
Dover is home to the busiest passenger port in the world, connecting the UK with the European mainland. Dover Castle towers above the town, signalling Dover’s strategic importance in the defence of the country and the White Cliffs are one of the most recognised landmarks in Britain. A popular filming location, Dover has also played host to Rogue Agent (2022), Whitstable Pearl (2021-2022), and Pistol (2022).
The Channel Tunnel is a 31-mile rail tunnel linking Folkestone to Europe. It was one of the main settings for the programme The Tunnel (2013).
Series 2 of Invasion was released on Apple TV on Wednesday 23rd August 2023.
Director: Matthew López
Starring: Nicholas Galitzine, Taylor Zakhar Perez, Uma Thurman
Production Company: Amazon Studios, Berlanti Productions
Kent Locations Used: Private house in Sevenoaks
Based on the 2019 novel of the same name, Red, White & Royal Blue (2023) is an enemies-to-lovers rom-com about the forbidden romance between the son of the President of the United States and the Prince of England. If their secret affair comes to light, it could have irreversible political consequences.
Starring: Jessica Ransom, Tom Stourton, James McNicholas, Emily Lloyd-Saini
Production Company: Lion Television
Kent Locations Used: The Historic Dockyard Chatham, Allington Castle, Ightham Mote
First premiering in 2009, the CBBC’s children’s TV programme Horrible Histories (2009-2023) is back for its tenth series. Based on the novels by Terry Deary, Horrible Histories is packed full of bloody battles and black humour; informing and entertaining young audiences with comedic historical sketches.
Production have visited Kent various times for Series 8, 9 and 10.
For Series 8, production visited The Historic Dockyard Chatham, where they filmed a Queen Victoria as well as a Suffragettes sketch in the Ropery; Napoleonic and Georgian scenes at the Officer’s Terrace and the Commissioner’s House; various scenes for the Home Front episode at the Old Pay Office and HMS Ocelot, which doubled briefly as a Swedish submarine.
Allington Castle was also used in Series 8 for various medieval sketches, as well as in garden scenes featuring Madame Pomapadour and the English Romantic Poets.
For Series 9, production returned to The Historic Dockyard Chatham. The Tarred Yarn Store features as the interior of a factory, the Ropery and Anchor Wharf double as Victorian streets, and the Officer’s Terrace doubles as a Georgian street.
Allington Castle once again provide the setting for the gardens of the Palace of Versailles, plus the Royal Mint, an ancient Grecian market, the Palace of King Charles VI in France, a medieval hall, and a spooky castle.
Built nearly 700 years ago, Ightham Mote has seen many changes and been owned by medieval knights, courtiers to Henry VIII and high-society Victorians. Highlights include the picturesque courtyard, formal gardens, great hall, Grade I listed dog kennel and the library of the American businessman Charles Henry Robinson. Making Noise Quietly (2019) filmed on the grounds of Ightham Mote.
The eighth series of Horrible Histories aired on CBBC from 3rd June 2019. Episodes are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
The Christmas special of Series 9 aired on CBBC on Friday 10th December 2021, with the rest of the series following in 2022.
Series 10 will begin airing on CBBC with a Father’s Day special on Friday 16th June 2023, with the rest of the series to follow intermittently. All episodes will be available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
Creator: Tony McNamara Starring: Elle Fanning, Nicholas Hoult, Phoebe Fox, Gwilym Lee, Sacha Dhawan Production Company: Thruline Entertainment, Echo Lake Entertainment, Lewellen Pictures, MRC Television, Macgowan Films Kent Locations Used: Hever Castle, St Clere Estate, Botany Bay, Cobham Wood, The Historic Dockyard Chatham
The Great (2020-2023), a satirical comedy from American streaming company Hulu, follows the infamous rise of Prussian-born Catherine the Great as she ascends to become the longest serving female ruler in Russian history. Forced to choose between her own personal happiness and the future of an empire, she abandons a life of love and romance and vows to change a country plagued by deceit and ruin.
Series 3 sees Catherine and Peter attempt to make their marriage work after a very rocky start. But with Peter haunted by visions of his late grandfather, Peter The Great (Jason Isaacs), will he stay content as mere First Husband to Catherine the Great for long?
Production visited various locations in Kent for Series 1, 2 and 3.
In Series 1 Episode 8, the Italian Loggia on Hever Castle lake doubles as an Eastern European house where Peter III of Russia (Nicholas Hoult) and Catherine (Elle Fanning) meet the Swedish King Hugo (Freddie Fox) and Queen Agnes (Grace Molony). The Loggia reappears in Series 2 Episode 1 as the house in which Peter and his confidantes Grigor (Gwilym Lee) and Georgina (Charity Wakefield) hide out from Catherine’s army.
The fields of St Clere Estate in Sevenoaks were used to stage battle scenes in Series 1 Episodes 5 and 7. The location returned in Series 2 Episode 1 as Catherine’s army’s base camp. St Clere also reappears in Series 3 Episodes 6 and 8 as an army camp on the Russia / Sweden border and the frozen lake where one key character meets an unexpected end.
Botany Bay in Broadstairs features in a dream sequence in Series 2 Episode 10, where Catherine images Peter eating a whale on the beach.
Cobham Wood appears briefly in Series 3 Episode 6, as Catherine and Grigor ride in a carriage through the woods. The Tarred Yarn Store at The Historic Dockyard Chatham also features in Series 3 Episode 5, doubling as the interior of a town hall where Pugachev (Nicholas Hoult) incites the peasants against Catherine.
Hever Castle is an outstanding 13th century and Tudor castle with a moat, stunning Italianate gardens, a beautiful lake, as well as a mock Tudor Village. It was the original home of the Boleyn family. Productions that filmed here include Inkheart (2008) and The Third Day (2020).
St Clere Estate is set in 2800 acres of the rolling Kent countryside and offers stunning views of the North Downs. Some of the ground’s features include formal gardens, paddocks, a meadow, fields, an orangery, green houses and a temple by the lake. St Clere Estate has previously been used to film Road Games (2016) and Sky’s original series Gangs of London (2020-2022).
Cobham Wood is a vast woodland park containing an array of vegetation and landscapes. The park is home to the Darnley Mausoleum; built in the 18th Century as the final resting place for the Darnley family, it remains unused.
A historic 17th Century Dockyard spanning over 80 acres, Chatham Dockyard contains over 100 buildings dating from the Georgian and Victorian periods. One of the most popular filming locations in Kent, recent productions to have filmed on the site include A Spy Among Friends (2022), Enola Holmes 2 (2022), and Series 3 of Jerk (2023).
Series 3 of The Great will be released on Lionsgate+ on Friday 14th July 2023 and the series is currently available to stream on StarzPlay and All4.
Director: Tanel Toom
Starring: Kate Bosworth, Lucien Laviscount, Martin McCann, Thomas Kretschmann
Production Company: Allfilm, Altitude Film Entertainment, BR/Arte, CrossDay Productions Ltd, Head Gear Films, Kick Film, Sentinel Entertainment, Stigma Films, Tallifornia
Kent Locations Used: Redsand Towers Sea Forts
Set in the year 2063, Last Sentinel (2023) follows a platoon of soldiers, stranded in an abandoned military base in the middle of the ocean, the last line of defence against an unknown enemy.
The film is set on a single tower of the Maunsell Army Forts (aka Redsand Towers Sea Forts), and the exterior of the tower features in various establishing shots throughout the film.
Located 8 miles off-shore, the Redsand Towers Sea Forts are a complex of 7 towers originally erected to defend the Thames Estuary during WWII. Inside, the forts provide on average two floors with five small rooms each. The Towers also feature in Series 1 of Whitstable Pearl (2021-2022).
Last Sentinel (2023) was released on Saturday 1st July 2023 and is available to stream on Amazon.
Director: Tarun Teja Mallareddy
Starring: Vasanth Ravi, Vimala Raman, Saras Menon, Muralidaran, Udhaya Deep, Simran Pareek
Production Company: Sri Venkateswara Cine Chitra, Vibgyor Vibe Media Services, Victory Visuals
Kent Locations Used: Bedgebury Manor
Asvins (2023) is an Indian Tamil-language psychological horror film following a group of YouTubers investigating paranormal activity in a mansion in Kent. After accidentally unleashing a 1500-year-old evil entity, the group must fight to save their lives.
Most of the film was shot at Bedgebury Manor in Cranbrook, featuring as the haunted house the crew investigate.
Bedgebury Manor is a privately owned and partly restored former boarding school set in 200 acres of parkland in the Weald of Kent. There are many facilities including a gymnasium, offices, a study centre and accommodation block.
Asvins (2023) was released on Netflix on Friday 23rd June 2023.
Creator: Lauren Schmidt
Starring: Henry Cavill, Freya Allan, Anya Chalotra
Production Company: Cinesite, Hivemind, Netflix, Pioneer Stilking Films, Platige Image
Kent Locations Used: Jolly Farm, Fort Amherst
Based on the book series of the same name by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher (2023) is a Netflix drama series which explores the legend of Geralt of Rivia, a monster hunter struggling to find his place in the medieval-inspired land known as the Continent.
Production visited Kent for Series 3 to film at Fort Amherst and transform a barn at Jolly Farm into a medieval tavern.
Built during Napoleonic times to defend Medway from a land-based attack, Fort Amherst consists of run-down period outbuildings, cannons, defensive ditches, dressed period guard quarters, and atmospheric underground tunnels. Previous productions to have filmed there include Darkest Hour (2018), Jekyll and Hyde (2015) and Partners in Crime (2015).
Situated in Sevenoaks district, Jolly Farm has 250 acres of arable and pastoral farmland, ancient parkland and woodland, as well as multiple farm buildings, a historic untouched stable courtyard, vintage-packed farmhouse and quintessential English cottage. ITV series The Larkins (2021-2022) also filmed at Jolly Farm.
Series 3 of The Witcher (2023) will be released on Netflix, with Part 1 dropping on Thursday 29th June 2023 and Part 2 following on Thursday 27th July 2023.
