Cream of British comedy choose Plymouth for filming

Plymouth’s iconic Civic Centre and Council House recently welcomed the cream of British comedy to the city for the latest Comic Strip film.

For the new film, ‘The Comic Strip Presents…The Red Top!’, the film makers Great Western Features were looking for a building that could double up as 1970s newspaper offices in Wapping, plus a hotel and police station. The filmmakers managed to find a window when the Civic Centre – the former headquarters of Plymouth City Council - was being vacated prior to the planned sale to Urban Splash.

The film features an A-List of British comedians including Maxine Peake, Johnny Vegas, Stephen Mangan, Nigel Planer, Harry Enfield, Russell Tovey, Alexei Sayle and Comic Strip creator Peter Richardson also makes an appearance in the film, which parodies the phone hacking scandal. It has been commissioned by UKTV and will be shown on Gold in the new year – the second Comic Strip film to be made exclusively for Gold since Five Go To Rehab was made to mark the Comic Strip’s 30th anniversary in 2012.

Leader of Plymouth City Council, Councillor Tudor Evans, who is pictured with star Maxine Peak and Comic Strip founder and director Peter Richardson, said: “We are really thrilled that the Comic Strip team have chosen Plymouth to make their new film.

“It’s a fantastic city with some amazing locations, and we are always delighted to welcome film-makers here. It has been a bit surreal the last couple of weeks because the Council House has doubled up as News International headquarters but it’s a great coup for Plymouth and I look forward to seeing the finished product.”

Nick Smith from Great Western Features approached Plymouth City Council to ask about using the buildings as a film set, said: “The Civic Centre and Council House were perfect as our film is set in the 1970s and neither building has changed much since then! This small window between the Council moving out and before Urban Splash move in was the ideal opportunity for us to make the film so we were delighted when Plymouth City Council said yes.”

Creator Peter Richardson said: “Like our previous Comic Strip satire - ‘The Hunt For Tony Blair’ which was set in the sixties, ‘The Red Top (WT)’ lampoons the phone hacking scandal and the world of politics and press proprietors, and is set in a colourful seventies ‘Boogie Nights’ style parallel universe with a disco soundtrack. I’m thrilled to have such a fantastic cast. It should be huge fun.”

The outlandish 75-minute comic fantasy tells the story of Rebekah (Maxine Peake) an innocent and beguiling Northern girl who accidentally becomes Chief Executive of News International and gets caught up in a seventies Watergate-style scandal.