On Location peels back the curtain on some of your favourite films, television shows, and more. This time, we ask: where was The Party filmed?
The Party, a novel by writer and podcaster Elizabeth Day, came out in 2017. Now, nearly 10 years later, we’ll finally see Martin Gilmour and Ben Fitzmaurice on screens as the book comes to life as part of a new ITV adaptation.
“It feels unbelievably thrilling and surreal,” says Day. “Because these characters and these locations existed only in my imagination. I wrote the book 10 years ago, so I’m still in a place where I don’t believe it’s happening – we’ve had the screening, I’m at the press junket, and there’s a big poster of Luke Evans staring at me and yet I’m still like, ‘I don’t know if it’s actually going to happen.’ I guess that’s what TV is like.”
“It feels like climbing up the Himalayas, because you have to suffer, you have to sweat, you even bleed for it – it feels hard,” laughs director Viviane Andereggen on the process of creating the series. “Then you reach the highest point and you have this quietness and this peace around you.”
“It’s an amazing show, isn’t it? And I can say that because it was literally this incredible creative team who did it, and I’m just so in awe of Viviane’s talent,” adds Day. “I love Viviane’s visual style. I just think she make everything look so resonant. There are so many layers to every single scene visually, and then obviously the acting and everything on top of that is brilliant.”
The book and the series follow the life of Martin Gilmour, a journalist who lives in the shadow (as his nickname, Little Shadow, suggests) of his life-long friend and idol, Ben Fitzmaurice. We see the duo grow from first becoming friends at school, through university and into their working lives – and along the way, learn the secrets that have bound them together, for better or worse.
Luke Evans as Martin Gilmour
Rob Youngson/ITV