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In Netflix’s seriously bingeable new thriller Black Doves, London is as much of a character as Keira Knightley’s spy Helen Webb (not her real name) or her old friend, Ben Whishaw’s espionage enforcer Sam Young.
The pair play so-called ‘Black Doves’, agents for hire who retrieve and sell industrial, political, and diplomatic secrets to the highest bidder. To muddy the waters, Webb is married to the UK’s Secretary of State For Defence. Her secret identity is suddenly in danger of being revealed when her lover is murdered by a mystery sniper.
Celebrating the feel of London during the Christmas period was a key goal for a show created by Giri/Haji’s Joe Barton. ‘There’s a London Christmas aesthetic that everyone thinks they know really well,’ producer Harry Munday tells Time Out. ‘We also wanted to show assassins and gangs getting mixed up in that.’
In order to achieve that distinctly London atmosphere, Black Doves filmed in a mind-blowing 85 different locations over 93 days, with the first three episodes shot between the middle of October and late December 2023. Production on the final three episodes took place between January and March 2024.
But where exactly did Black Doves film in London? Read on to find out.
Jason’s bloody death was shot on the South Bank
The South Bank takes on a key role in Black Doves. It’s here that Helen’s lover, Jason (Andrew Koji), is shot in the opening moments of the first episode. According to Munday, filming took place in this busy Thameside thoroughfare on five occasions – either before 8am or between midnight and 3am to avoid the crowds. ‘Trying to shoot a scene on a bench with Keira Knightley there [at any other time] would have just been unmanageable – especially for Keira.’
The Webb’s family home is located in Crystal Palace IRL
Finding the house where Helen Webb, her politician husband Wallace (Broadchurch’s Andrew Buchan), and their two children live proved to an arduous task. A mammoth 85 houses were looked at before an elegant six-bedroom house was finally located in Crystal Palace.
‘We didn’t just want a rich London townhouse that you see in Islington or Paddington,’ says Munday. Ultimately, they picked this house because it was directly opposite a set of flats and they liked how plain the rest of the street looked. ‘It painted the picture of London that we wanted to depict. It felt authentic and reflected the variety of living in London.’
‘We shot all of the interiors there,’ says the producer, ’including the fight sequence with assassin Elmore Fitch (Paapa Essiedu), which we did over two nights’.
Reed and Helen’s first encounter takes place at St Paul’s
In the initial scripts for Black Doves, shadowy spy chief Reed (Sarah Lancashire) was based out of an office. Director Alex Gabassi suggested finding more interesting locations across London for her meet-ups with Helen and Sam instead.
Location manager Adam Schwarz created a file called ‘Interesting London’ and dropped possible locations into it. Schwarz, Munday and the rest of the Black Doves team picked St Paul’s Angel’s Wings as the location for Reed and Helen’s first meeting. The stainless steel sculpture is located in Paternoster Square in the shadow of the iconic cathedral.
‘We filmed it at night and shone this blue light on it,’ says Munday. ‘We loved that it’s tucked away in the corner – it just added to the character of Reed and made her more enigmatic, and added this sense that she has a lot going on.’
Sam and Helen leap from an exploding flat in Brentford
At the start of episode 2, Sam and Helen are tricked into going to a flat where they believe Jason’s killer lives. But it quickly transpires that it has been wired up with explosives, so the pair have to jump from the balcony and into the water below.
While the exterior of the flat was shot in Brentford, Munday explains how they used television magic to create the whole sequence: ‘We filmed them arriving at a genuine place in Brentford and walking up to the door of the flat, but as soon as they were inside, the interior was built in a studio.’ Blue screen and VFX did the rest. Knightley and Whishaw were also filmed swimming in a studio water tank.
Sam gives Helen the hard drive in a Tooting bingo hall
At the start of episode three, Sam meets Reed to hand over a hard drive at the Granada building in Tooting. It originally opened in 1931 as one of Britain’s grandest cinemas, later becoming a bingo hall. As soon as Munday saw it, he knew that ‘dropping two little people into this huge space to have a conversation would look very interesting’.
The scene almost got in the way of the building’s main purpose, though. ‘We had a time limit to shoot there,’ says Munday. ‘We had to be done by a certain point that morning and as we were finishing up and leaving, loads of people were coming inside to play bingo.’
The Christmassy London scenes were filmed at Leadenhall Market, Pines and Needles, and Liberty
In a later episode, Helen makes her way through the wonderfully decorated shops to track down a vital piece of tech. The decision was made to shoot inside Leadenhall Market before Christmas for full festive authenticity.
‘Even if we took over Leadenhall Market, we couldn’t make it look as impressive as they do [at Christmas],’ says Munday. While they shot the rest of the last three episodes in the new year, they spent several December days capturing the city at Christmas.
This also included shooting at the hugely popular Pines and Needles Christmas tree market in Victoria Park. ‘We wanted to take advantage of the Christmas tree market that celebrated Christmas on such a big scale,’ says Munday.
Black Doves also used the exteriors of Liberty department store in an episode 1 sequence. ‘They hadn’t finished designing their decorations when we secured the location,’ remembers Munday, ‘so we had to gamble on that one’.
The pubs scenes were captured in The Coal Hole, The Market Coffee House, The Westminster Arms and The Palm Tree
One of the best ways to enjoy London in December is, of course, by decamping to one of the city’s cosiest pubs and surrounding yourself with Christmas trees, tinsel and Londoners several pints’ deep in festive spirit.
To capture all that festive jollity, the production headed to pubs like Covent Garden’s The Coal Hole, where Jason is shown drinking before he’s killed, and Spitalfield’s The Market Coffee House & Bar. There, Sam reunites with his old crime boss Lenny (Kathryn Hunter) for the first time in years, and where Sam and Helen make their plans to find the missing daughter of the Chinese ambassador, Kai-Ming (Isabella Wei).
They also shot in British MPs’ boozer of choice, The Westminster Arms in Whitehall, where Helen spies on Wallace, as well as The Palm Tree in Mile End. ‘We were conscious about making [the pubs] all feel different,’ says Munday. ‘We wanted to give a sense of what a quintessential London pub is like in the lead-up to Christmas.’ Mission accomplished.
Where can I watch Black Doves in the UK?
It’s streaming on Netflix now.
How many episodes are in Black Doves?
There are six in total, a series runtime of 5 hours 30 mins.
Is there a season 2 of Black Doves?
Yes, a second season has already been greenlit.
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