King Lear (2018)

 

Portrait shot of character King Lear sitting on a chair with his three daughters by his side in the palace. Background is black and white chequered floor with black wall panels.

King Lear and his three daughters ©BBC

 

Director: Richard Eyre

Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Emily Watson, Florence Pugh, Jim Broadbent, Andrew Scott, John Macmillan, Jim Carter, Christopher Eccleston, Tobias Menzies, Anthony Calf and Karl Johnson

Production Company: Playground Entertainment, Amazon Studios and BBC

Kent Locations Used: Dover

King Lear is a modern-day adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play of the same name. The film tells the tragic story of King Lear (Anthony Hopkins) who abdicates his throne in favour of his two corrupt daughters Regan (Emily Watson) and Goneril (Emma Thompson), rejecting his loving and honest third daughter Cordelia (Florence Pugh) when she fails his test of flattery.

Director, Richard Eyre, has previously worked on films Notes on a Scandal, Iris, and Stage Beauty. Anthony Hopkins who plays King Lear, is best known for his role in The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Hitchcock. Emma Thompson as eldest daughter Goneril, was previously in Love Actually and The Remains of the Day.

Scenes were filmed in various locations in Dover, such as at Dover Castle, Samphire Hoe, and Abbot’s Cliff.

King Lear will air on Monday 28 May 2018 at 9:30pm on BBC Two.

For more information about Kent’s Filming History please visit our Movie Map. 


Great Expectations (1989)

 

Great Expectations Movieposter 1989- Montage of characters from the film overlapping. Great Expectations written in yellow over the top

Great Expectations Movieposter 1989 © Buena Vista Television

Director: Kevin Connor

Writers: Charles Dickens (Novel)

Starring: Kim Thompson, Jean Simmons, Anthony Calf & Anthony Hopkins

Production Company: Harlech Television (HTV), Primetime Television Ltd., Tesauro Television, Walt Disney Television

Kent Locations Used: Harty Church, Rochester, Chatham, Upnor village

With a future as a blacksmith before him, Pip is invited to the home of the lonely spinster, Miss Havisham, abandoned on the day of her wedding. Encouraging her adopted daughter Estella to break the young boy’s heart, Pip is sent there for her own entertainment. The young boy’s fortunes change when an unknown and generous person pays for Pip to travel to London and begin a new life as a gentleman.

Starring Kim Thompson (Emmerdale Farm, 1408) as Estella, Jean Simmons (Spartacus) as the haunting Miss Havisham, Anthony Calf (New Tricks) as Pip and Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs, Thor) as Abel Magwitch, this Disney adaptation of the Dickens classic features many Kent locations.

Filming took place at Harty Church on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent: young Orphan Phillip (Pip) Pirrup, on a visit to the graves of his parents, meets the sinister escaped convict Abel Magwitch.  The church has part-Norman origins and is visited by both tourists and historians from around the world.

The crew also came to Upnor village to film, which provides the home of Herbert Pockets’ fiancée Clara’s house. Locals to the area will notice the Upnor Lighthouse as Pip docks in the village.

Another Kentish church, St James’ church in Cooling, which is situated on the marshes near the Hoo Peninsula, inspired Dickens so much, he used the location for the dramatic scene where Pip meets prisoner Magwitch.

 

For more information about Kent’s Filming History please visit our Movie Map.