BEAUTY IN A TIME OF COLD WAR: SUMMER OF ROCKETS/BENINGTON LORDSHIP

As was the case with its predecessor, Close To The Enemy, the latest Stephen Poliakoff TV drama, Summer Of Rockets, has come up trumps once again with its visual beauty and period touches.  Set in the Cold War period, in 1958, at a time when fears of a nuclear conflict were growing among the populace – hence the title – the focal point of the story is Russian émigré Samuel Petrukhin (Toby Stephens) who invents a clever tracking device and who is reluctantly sucked into the world of espionage, necessitating repeated visits to the beautiful home of a politician and his wife, Richard and Kathleen Shaw (Linus Roache and Keeley Hawes).  Another facet of the story is the desperate search by Kathleen for her son who has disappeared.



The Shaws hold many posh get-togethers at their home, and this is where much of the action takes place in the series.  The real-life property where these scenes were filmed is the curiously named Benington Lordship, a few kilometres east of Stevenage in Hertfordshire, a private family home which opens up its gardens to the public at certain times of the year, for instance in February for the snowdrops.  The gardens were created above an ancient fortified site dating from Saxon times.  The gatehouse seen in many of the scenes is a neo-norman folly completed in 1838.  The house itself was a manor house, originally started around 1700.  The west wing was added in 1905 by the present owners’ ancestors.

Benington Lordship 001 (8249305273).  Photo by Ozzy Delaney, via Wikimedia Commons.

The property has been used in a number of other productions, such as the BBC Just William production and series 1 and 2 of the Channel 4 drama Humans.  

Another location frequently seen in Summer Of Rockets is the airfield where the tracking device is put to the test.  This was filmed at the former RAF base Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire, an appropriate choice, having been used as a base for US forces based in Britain during the Cold War.

Benington Lordship-5279415003. Photo by Rictor Norton and David Allen, via Wikimedia Commons.

Map of Benington Lordship and surrounding area.

STEELY STRIPPERS: THE FULL MONTY/SHEFFIELD

The 1997 British comedy film The Full Monty is a product of two vastly different phenomena that arose during the latter part of the 20^th century.  The first was the decline of the steel industry, which hit the Yorkshire city of Sheffield particularly hard.  Many blame Margaret Thatcher for this, but there were multiple factors, including competition from other countries and low productivity.  Increased automation was another development, all of which put a lot of steel workers out of a job. 



The other phenomenon that appeared during this time was that of groups of male strippers, the most famous of which are The Chippendales, still going strong today.  Their performances gave hordes of leering women the chance to get their own backs for the objectification of the female body, flocking to large venues to whoop and cheer at the sight of muscly oiled male bodies, no doubt helped along by large quantities of alcohol.


The Full Monty manages to unite these two themes, telling the tale of a group of unemployed steel workers who decide to turn their fortunes around by forming a male stripper group.  Almost all of the filming took place in and around Sheffield, using glamorous locations such as an Asda supermarket, factories and a working men’s club, as well as many of the city’s streets.

View over the city from Bingham Park - geograph.org.uk - 16529. Sheffield, where most of the scenes were filmed. Photo by Paul Store, via Wikimedia Commons.

The steelworks which put the men out on the streets in the film are represented by the building formerly occupied by Sanderson Special Steels in Newhall Road, Attercliffe.  The Shirebrook Colliery in the film was filmed at a Rolling Mill in the city.  The factory where Gaz’s ex-wife Mandy works is actually the now closed Eversure Textiles, which used to have premises at the Northpoint Industrial Estate.


Various locations around the city were used for scenes involving the characters’ homes: Gerald’s house in Whirlow Park Road; Gaz’s house in Oxford Street; Dave’s house in Meadowbank Road.  Manor Oaks Road is seen in the keep fit sequence, while the most poignant scene in the film, featuring Lomper’s suicide attempt, was filmed in Pickering Road.  Orgreave Way is where the ASDA supermarket was filmed, and the burger bar scene was filmed in Cambridge Street at Pepes, which is now at a different address.



The Job Centre where the lads are seen signing on was filmed at an actual Job Centre, or rather Job Centre Plus at the corner of Bailey Lane and West Street.  The school building in the scene where Gaz drops off his son is actually the Sheffield Boxing Centre in Burton Street.  The Millthorpe Working Men’s Club in the film, where the group finally get to strut their stuff, is represented by the Shiregreen Working Men’s Club at 136 Shiregreen Lane.



Out and about in the fresh air, the park where Gerald spends his days on a park bench, having kept quiet to his wife about his unemployed status, and where the lads invite Gerald to be their choreographer, is Ruskin Park in Walkley.  The park was created relatively recently on the site of a number of streets which were cleared in the early 1980s.  The city’s Crookes Cemetery is where Lomper’s mother is laid to rest.  The cemetery includes 70 graves of service personnel who served in the First and Second World Wars.  Finally, the scene in which Gaz and Dave are stranded on a sinking car was filmed by Bacon Lane Bridge in Attercliffe, on the Sheffield and Tinsley Canal, which forms the upper four miles of the Sheffield & South Yorkshire Navigation.  The canal was opened in 1819 to serve as a link between the River Don and a basin in the centre of the city.

Bacon Lane Bridge. Photo by Warofdreams, via Wikimedia Commons.

Visitors to Sheffield who want to find out more about the city’s industrial heritage will find what they are looking for at the Kelham Island Museum.  Metal features heavily in the works on display at the Millennium Gallery, which also contains the Ruskin Collection of works of art.  The art critic John Ruskin put the collection together with the help of his Guild for the benefit of the city’s metalworkers.

Kelham Island Museum, Steel Ladle. Photo by Mick Knapton, via Wikimedia Commons.

Map of the area.