Silent Witness has it all: poison, dead bodies, suspicion, and murder. This is undoubtedly the reason why this astute crime drama is currently on its 26th season.
We are thrilled to see Emilia Fox reprising her role as Dr Nikki Alexander, teaming up with David Canes and friends to solve more crimes on television.
Returning to television screens in conjunction with Happy Valley season three and the upcoming ITV drama Maternal, the new series promises action-packed viewing and a good number of filming locations that die-hard fans of the show will recognize.
London is the setting for BBC One’s Silent Witness. Up until 1999, the long-running criminal drama was filmed in Cambridge; however, the set was eventually moved to Acton, London.
The penultimate episode of BBC One’s enduring forensic drama Silent Witness, which is nearing the conclusion of its 24th series, leaves viewers on a very dangerous high note. Returning at the start of the show, Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox) and Jack Hodgson (David Caves) solve gloomy and eerie crimes, the most recent of which involved a murder at a care facility.
Additionally, the series has been extremely dramatic thus far, with newbie Adam Yeun (played by Strangers actor Jason Wong) being brutally killed off and Simone Tyler (Genesis Lynea) coming this week.
The team’s base, Lyell Centre, remains constant throughout the season, while the show uses several various locations as our team investigates a range of cases.
It’s interesting to note that Emilia Fox recently disclosed that the locales for this season were deliberately picked to facilitate filming despite pandemic constraints, with plots being altered to enable this.
We were filming under COVID constraints, so the stories had to change, she explained. The writers addressed this by keeping us confined to specific areas because we were unable to film as much of London.
Filming Locations
The BBC Park Western warehouse in Acton, where a permanent set was constructed eight years ago, is home to the Lyell Centre. Now that the art and props departments are housed here at the official Silent Witness headquarters, they can supply artificial blood and cadavers upon request.
The care facility, the scene of a pivotal murder in Matters of Life and Death, was shot in two different locations: the interior was shot at Harefield Grove, Uxbridge, and the exterior was shot at Briggens Park Hotel, Ware. Nikki and Ollie’s Halloween party, meanwhile, was recorded at Brunel University in Uxbridge.
Michelle Lafferty’s gym in the episode was modeled after Foley’s Boxing Gym in the Surrey village of Addlestone, both inside and out. Ben’s first official boxing match, meanwhile, was recorded at Greystone’s Boxing Venue in Addlestone, and the aftermath was captured there at the Boxing Bar.
A scene involving Nikki and Simone, a newbie within the Natural History Museum, is also featured in episode seven. A large portion of the third doubleheader, Reputations, is set in a hospital named St Jude’s, even though there isn’t one in real life.
Rather, these scenes were recorded at the Hemel Hempstead General Hospital, which is located not far from London.
Additional sequences in these episodes are shot at the Mistral Building in Reading, which serves as the Cowley Institute. Jack Hodgson had to dive into the water to save a suspect from drowning himself in the second half of the doubleheader Bad Love.
The beach where this image was shot is at Birling Gap and the Seven Sisters, properties owned by the National Trust. At the beginning of the doubleheader, the Charing Cross Sports Club in Hammersmith hosted the swimming pool scene.
In the first double-header of season 24, Nikki and Jack are called to a high-security prison in response to the death of an inmate during a prison riot.
The name of the prison in the episode, Hayworth Prison, is not the name of an actual prison in the UK (though it may be a small homage to The Shawshank Redemption when a prisoner breaks out of his cell with the aid of a Rita Hayworth poster).
Filming took place in October 2020 at the now-closed Gloucester Prison on Barrack Square, where portions of the episode were filmed. Since it closed in 2013, the prison has been converted into a tourist destination. Meanwhile, the interior jail shots were recorded at London’s Former HMP Holloway, located on Parkhurst Road.
