FOMI director, Alex Dewing, takes us through some of the filming locations of British Drama AdULTHOOD. This article was written as part of the celebration of the Festival of the Moving Image, UCL’s only student run film festival, which was unfortunately canceled due to COVID-19. 

When the Kidulthood series began back in 2006, the film instantly found a special place in the history of cinema. Specifically British cinema. Up until this point, when pressed to think about a film centred on teenage life in the London you might instinctively reach to Gurinder Chadha’s Bend It Like Beckham or Nicholas Hytner’s The History Boys, both of which present some of the typical British tropes found both then and now. These films follow middle-class families who live in middle-class houses and live middle-class lives. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this but audiences, as well as filmmakers, noticed that the focus on such backgrounds left so many people’s stories off the screen. One such filmmaker being Noel Clarke, of Kidulthood and Doctor Who fame. Clarke saw that people like Sam Peel, the protagonist of the Kidulthood series, were simply left at the sidelines of films, if not completely unseen. At its core, Kidulthood wasn’t too dissimilar from other teenage dramas. It is a story about kids trying to navigate through their teenage years and find their own paths to adulthood. But these navigations take a very different course when violence, race, and social issues are things that can’t be ignored.

These elements are further explored in the series’ second film, Adulthood, and solidify the film and trilogy as an important cornerstone for capturing the realism of life in and beyond a London estate. Frantic, urban, and unflinching, Adulthood follows Sam Peel as he becomes a free man having served six years in prison following the events of Kidulthood. Now forced to confront the damage he caused and the people he hurt, he soon finds that someone is out for revenge. As well as writing and directing, Noel Clarke stars once again alongside now key names in British cinema including  Adam Deacon and Scarlett Alice Johnson. This British drama is non-stop. Set among the estates of West London, AdULTHOOD looks at how far you must go for redemption, with an immediacy that feels fitting of the never-quiet streets of London. London is such an innate part of the film, it almost lives and breathes as much as the characters themselves. The locations within it aren’t extraordinary but it is their mundanity that makes it and the film so representational. So what better way to celebrate the film than to show some of those very locations, many of which you’ve probably come across yourself. 

Lancaster West Estate

The unique architectural style of this West London estate that comes from its 70s design, makes it so distinct and visually interesting. The estate and its hugely diverse community was from the very beginning a key part of Adulthood and the series as a whole, as it’s not so often we see films and stories come from places such as these. 

Latimer Road Station

This tube station is the site of unexpected tension as Adulthood’s cat and mouse chase almost comes to a head as Jay boards the tube at Latimer Road Station, Sam simultaneously gets off. Only once the doors are closed do the two spot each other and stare off as rage brims under the surface.

Tasty Corner Café

This uncannily nostalgic corner café is the setting for a reunion between Sam and Moony (Femi Oyeniran), one that quickly turns sour after Sam reveals his true reason for the call; he needs help finding his family and anyone who might be looking to hurt them in an act of revenge. But Moony isn’t ready to get back into that business.

Ladbroke Grove Station

A lot of Adulthood’s happenings take place around Ladbroke Grove Station and Ladbroke Grove road, including where we first meet the not-so-nice Hayden, surprisingly played by Danny Dyer with his typical geezer gruff. Characters catch buses here, stop for a chat, and are even chased down side-streets, showing how close to home even the worst of situations can be. 

Hammersmith Station

The confrontation between Jay (Adam Deacon) and Mooney about the death of their mutual friend years earlier, and in which Jay attempts to enlist his friends’ help in tracking down Sam, takes place both inside and out of a café next to Hammersmith Station. As their meeting shows a glimpse of how far Jay will go to take his revenge, this location made a lot of the promotional imagery for the film and can even be seen in the film’s official trailer. 

Portobello Road / Tavistock Road 

As a great example of Clarke’s juxtaposition of locations and actions within them, it is in this lovely area at the end of Portobello Road, known for its great Italian restaurants, that Lexi (Scarlett Alice Johnson), Adulthood’s main female protagonist gets into a fight over the location of much-sought-after cousin, Becky. It is in this same location later in the film that Lexi and Sam realise they might be of some use to each other.

Dan Jacobson looks at what Danny Boyle’s vision of the apocalypse has us believe about London and lockdown. This article was written as part of the celebration of the Festival of the Moving Image, UCL’s only student run film festival, which was unfortunately canceled due to COVID-19. 

Like many of us, who have dutifully stayed at home and controlled the virus without any 260-mile trips to Durham, I have spent a significant amount of time thinking about how our society might change once we begin our “new normal”. This Covid-19 pandemic has forced us to ask difficult and pertinent questions about what we want our society to look like. The debate surrounding “unskilled migrants”, now risking their lives as key workers, has suddenly been drastically reframed, the mental health of the nation is finally being taken seriously, and the decrease in carbon emissions has displayed that, collaboratively, we are able to facilitate large-scale changes which were deemed unsustainable or unachievable just three months ago.

Identifying the key values of our society was the question at the centre of John Wyndham’s excellent 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids, which was one of screenwriter Alex Garland’s key inspirations behind 28 Days Later and also essential reading for me earlier in lockdown. After a cosmic event blinds everyone who sees it, and while the threat of carnivorous, locomotive plants known as ‘triffids’ grows, the remaining sighted individuals are forced to restart society in the image which they see fit. Through the protagonist Bill Masen, we see multiple alternatives – utilitarian polygamy, an attempt to retain Christian values, militaristic dictatorship – which, in turn, force us to ask what we might do, and what we would value, if everything we knew was suddenly obliterated.

28 Days Later, which was directed by Danny Boyle and released in 2002,  has since become one of the most iconic horror films ever made, and also forces us to ask how regular humans, devoid of authority, government, or a means of retaining order, would respond following the apocalypse. However, rather than presenting these alternatives implicitly, as Wyndham does, 28 Days Later is ostensibly pessimistic, asking us if human nature itself prevents an ideal society from being created at all.

In Boyle’s post-apocalyptic horror, the threat takes the form of a “rage virus” which causes those infected to develop a terrifying, unassailable blood lust. Unlike the typical presentation of a zombie, infected individuals are not lumbering masses, but instead are agile, responsive, and aggressive, which increases the stakes and threat of infected individuals to devastating effect. However, in its Frankensteinian twist, the final ‘monsters’ are not those who were infected, but instead are the humans who have become naturally consumed by the rage which drives their bloody actions. There’s an uneasy sense that this bloodlust exists within all of us, and just needs to be triggered in order to be released.

However, this is alluded to in the very opening scene, which shows that this virus is not natural but, instead, entirely man-made. The virus was synthesized by showing videos to chimpanzees containing newsreel footage of extreme violence by humans, causing them to become carriers of the novel virus. Once released by a group of animal rights activists, a chimp bites one of them, thus transmitting the virus to humans.  It is unclear where exactly this footage is taken from, but it’s a jarring collection of fundamentalism, reactions to genocide, and violent response to rebellion against authority. This lack of authority is a shock to Jim (Cillian Murphy) who, upon first meeting two uninfected individuals, says “Of course there’s a government! There’s always a government. They’re in a bunker or a plane.” Incidentally, the military blockade in North Manchester which Jim and the remaining London survivors flee to, initially taken to be the last vestige of upstanding civilization, turns out to be essentially the opposite.

This failure and mistrust in authority is, in my opinion, what makes the backdrop of London so pertinent. The city, despite a greying River Thames and scaffolding around Big Ben, is a glimmering display of what humans can achieve. Unfortunately, this is delivered with a terrifying dose of the incredible concentration of authority and influence which can be found behind the tolling bells and shining skyscrapers. This is what makes the image of Jim, unshaven and in hospital scrubs, standing in front of the Houses of Parliament as dawn comes, such a phenomenal piece of visual storytelling – a global powerhouse that has suddenly been rendered meaningless and ineffective.

In this respect, though, it is worth examining how London, and its image of authority, feeds into this “rage virus” which was shown in the film’s opening newsreel montage. Whilst 28 Days Later was written prior to 9/11, and filming began on September 1st 2001, there are clear parallels with the response at Ground Zero, or to the invasion of Iraq. These incidents triggered an intense feeling of rage, the repercussions of which are still heartbreakingly present today, and the causes of which could, arguably, be traced back to discussions had, and decisions made, within the walls of London.

Throughout this lockdown it seems that the overall public response, as seen on our news reports and social media feeds, has been decidedly dichotomous. On the one hand it has been heart-warmingly empathetic, characterised by clapping for carers, shopping for vulnerable neighbours, and checking in on those living alone. On the other hand, there has been an intense frustration, which would be expected after the senior government advisor flouts the very rules that he himself put in place, or the President of the free world casually encourages people to treat the virus by ingesting disinfectant.

I believe that both of these factors will lead to a change in the way we conduct ourselves once we enter into our new normal. However, it is paramount that the way we respond to our frustration with authority is not driven by the rage that is rightfully brewing. The central tenet of 28 Days Later is that anger begets greater anger. If we can somehow break this cycle which caused the rage virus to arise in the first place, we can hope to not just return society to normal, but to enhance it according to the positive values which we clearly collectively share.