Doubling for London
When British made shows are set in London, but filmed elsewhere.
This can be due to cost, or lack of the right sort of architecture (much of the Victorian architecture in the East End was destroyed in the Second World War or subsequent slum clearance).
Despite what the name would suggest, the city used is usually (but not always) somewhere in the UK.
Productions rarely if ever actually use Dublin for London.
Compare California Doubling.
Cities that have doubled for London
- Bucharest (The 2005 Made for TV Movie version of Sweeney Todd, although this used an outdoor set on a studio backlot rather than locations in the city itself.)
- Cardiff (Doctor Who and its spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures)
- Liverpool (The Ruby in the Smoke)
- Manchester (Prime Suspect, Red Dwarf, Sherlock Holmes)
- Prague (From Hell, again using backlot sets rather than city streets.)
- The London parts of Prince Caspian were shot in Prague too.
- Shrewsbury (A Christmas Carol, 1984)
- Scrooge's headstone can still be visited in the graveyard of St Chad's Church.
- For the Sherlock series, some scenes were actually filmed in Cardiff instead of London.
- Berlin (Around the World in Eighty Days, 2004)
- Despite the pun above Dublin has doubled for London in both The Tudors and Primeval.
- Brisbane, Australia (K9)
- Vilnius, Lithuania (The Palace).
- Hamburg, in the Edgar Wallace Films.