Location, Location (part 3)

As everyone knows, Barts (St Bartholomew’s) Hospital in the City of London plays a huge role in the life of Sherlock. It is where he meets John, who trained there. It is where Molly works. It is where clues are analysed. And it is where Sherlock meets Moriarty on the roof, and then apparently jumps to his death in The Reichenbach Fall. Or not!

I wondered what it would be like for Sherlock and John when they first came back to Barts, after Sherlock’s incredible reappearance in The Empty Hearse, and this was an attempt to recreate it. The picture is taken outside the hospital, with the ambulance station between me and the hospital building. The toys are standing on a stone bench to help with the perspective.

The building itself bears witness to the scenes which are supposed to have taken place there. The walls still carry graffiti written by Sherlock fans, and there are messages on the windows and on the phone box next to the hospital.

Trying to recreate Sherlock’s leap from the building was rather more complicated. I could have thrown the Sherlock toy in the air near the building and made multiple attempts to get a focussed photo of him as he fell back down again. The toys have been through worse. On balance, I decided it would be easier and more effective to recreate the bungee-jump theory. My first attempt was on my own and it was not a success. It was a very cold day and I nearly froze as I tried to get a picture of Sherlock hanging on a string with a recognisable amount of the building behind. A number of people watched me, but nobody seemed very surprised – I think they’ve seen it all before around Barts.

A few weeks later I was arranging to meet a friend for lunch in London. I suggested we eat near Smithfield Market. I would buy lunch, but in return he had to help me create a picture.  Even with help, it wasn’t easy. Funko heads are heavy compared with the rest of the toy, so Sherlock’s back was weighted down with plasticine, and the string was sellotaped to the back of his head to stop him nose-diving. Even so, I was dealing with a spinning detective:

Finally, we achieved a shot which included a recognisable slab of building, a reasonably focussed picture of Sherlock, and no visible human hands:

In The Six Thatchers, John enters into a flirtation with a woman he meets on the bus (we all sighed and felt rather sad, but none of us realised the full significance at the time!).  I wanted to picture the moment when John gets off the bus. I spent some time trying to find the right location, because there are many underground stations in London with the distinctive dark red tiling and half-moon windows like the one seen in the background.

I even took my John Funko toy, with a flower behind his ear, to Mornington Crescent and then realised it was the wrong place. Eventually, a bit more time on Google told me that I needed to search all the stations designed by Leslie Green (he designed an astonishing number before he died at 33 of tuberculosis in 1908). At last I tracked down the location  to Lambeth North, and found not only the station but the actual bus stop. In the episode the bus stop carries an advertisement featuring a huge photograph of Culverton Smith, who will then appear in The Lying Detective.

Conveniently a bus came and went while I had John perched on the side of a litter bin and I got the shot I wanted.

Shortly after we see that meeting, we find Sherlock walking across Vauxhall Bridge towards the MI6 building. At this moment he suddenly understands who double-crossed the AGRA team in Tbilisi. I used to work very near here, and knew the area well. Realising one evening that I was going to be near Vauxhall the next day, I chose the simplest way to ensure accuracy – I took a photo of my TV screen (note the toys!):

Posing the Sherlock toy on the pavement wouldn’t have worked, so I had to stand him on the bridge parapet and hope there wasn’t a strong gust of wind!

At the end of the same episode, after the shocking shooting of Mary in the London Aquarium, Sherlock sadly walks along the South Bank of the Thames thinking about the story of the appointment in Samarra (you can read the background to the story here).  Again, I had my photo of my TV screen to refer to:

With small toys and an iPhone camera, it was not possible to get the proportions of the buildings in the background exactly right, but I think I located the spot where it was filmed and did my best:

In The Lying Detective, the South Bank of the Thames is also the location for part of Sherlock’s conversation with the woman he believes to be Faith Smith.  I can only imagine that the conversation about suicide (“Your own death is something that happens to everybody else”) was filmed late at night or very early in the morning, because the area where it takes place is usually very busy – next to Hungerford Bridge and the South Bank Centre and surrounded by food stalls and street theatre. While I was taking my photo, in the early evening, people came up to remark on the tiny pack of chips and can of Red Bull, and somebody tried to pick them up! I politely pointed out that they were mine and I was photographing them; apparently they thought I had just spotted them on the railing and was photographing them because they were funny! Despite the interruptions, here is how I imagine Sherlock retracing his steps and trying to remember what really happened: