Filming crew on Bristol Uni campus to shoot new thriller series

Yesterday (Monday 10th June), a large camera crew set up on Tyndall’s Avenue outside Bristol University buildings.

The team, made up of roughly a hundred people from the company 60Forty, arrived at midday to film “Down Cemetery Road”, a new thriller that will be streamed on Apple TV+.

The road was closed for vehicles passing through during the day, as the crew changed the outside of Bristol’s Arts and Social Sciences library to appear as a police station.

The crew worked under the title “Larkin”, without revealing the name of the production. However, connections have been made via X that the title, “Down Cemetery Road” comes from a poem by British poet Phillip Larkin.

The production is an adaptation of a novel by Mick Herrson, a CWA Gold Dagger Award-winning author.

Back in April, Apple TV announced the making of the series which will star actress Emma Thompson who is best recognised for her role in Nanny McPhee, Love Actually and Cruella, to name a few. She has won an Academy Award, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for her talent in the industry.

Ruth Wilson will play alongside Emma, who played the protagonist in the series Jane Eyre, as well as appearing in The Affair and The Woman in the Wall. Ruth also has a Golden Globe as well as being a two-time Olivier Award winner.

The plot is described by Apple TV: “When a house explodes in a quiet Oxford suburb and a girl disappears in the aftermath, neighbour Sarah Tucker becomes obsessed with finding her and enlists the help of private investigator Zoë Boehm.

“Zoë and Sarah suddenly find themselves in a complex conspiracy that reveals that people long believed dead are still among the living, while the living are fast joining the dead.”

The camera crew was also spotted filming in The Clyde Arms, a pub located not far away in Redland during the past weekend (Sunday 9th June).

An onlooker tried to ask the crew at the pub what they were shooting for, but they refused to give any information. The production team was said to be “causing a bit of rush-hour chaos” whilst filming. 

This isn’t the first time Bristol Uni has been used as a filming location; the Netflix series Sex Education uses various places on campus as a set for their show, such as Wills and the Chemistry building.

BBC has also filmed on campus back in 2021 with a fairground set up outside the physics building for the drama series Showtrial.

For more about the upcoming thriller on Apple TV, read here.

The series is set to be on screen by August 2024.

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