Hardly a week goes by without seeing a film crew somewhere on the streets of Bristol. Cult classic Doctor Who and Amazon's Alex Rider is one of several huge productions filmed in around the city this year.
Bristol is one of the most film-friendly cities in the UK and production companies are spending a lot more money making films and TV shows here, with council-owned Bristol Film Office announcing that the industry generated £20.8m for the local economy in the 2021-2022 financial year. This was 22 per cent up on pre-pandemic figures and the largest contribution from filming-related activity made towards Bristol’s economy in a decade, thanks to shows like The Outlaws and Am I Being Unreasonable?
Last year also saw the expansion of the Bottle Yard Studios with a brand new, high-end facility to facilitate larger productions backed by £13.2m public investment from WECA, making the largest studio in the West of England even bigger. The Bristol Film Office, which turns 20 this year, is set for another busy year of productions.
Read more: Disney+ series Rivals to be shot at new high-end studio
So, which shows have been spotted in Bristol so far and when are they set to air on screen?
Doctor Who, BBC
Bristol Locations, November 2023
Doctor Who fans will already be aware that new episodes have been filmed in Bristol over the last nine months or so. In June, Bristol Live captured the apocalyptic scenes being filmed for the 60th anniversary special featuring David Tennant, Neil Patrick Harris and Catherine Tate.
In February this year, former EastEnders star Anita Dobson was spotted on set alongside Millie Gibson, who has been confirmed as the Doctor's new assistant Ruby Sunday. New Doctor Ncuti Gatwa was also photographed on a closed, Christmas-themed set.
Produced by Bad Wolf, the BBC has released a trailer featuring many shots of Bristol for the upcoming special featuring Tennant, Gatwa and Tate. The 60th-anniversary special is set to air on the BBC in November 2023 with the new season featuring Gatwa as the 14th Doctor coming in time for Christmas.
The Killing Kind, Paramount+
The Bottle Yard Studios, various Bristol locations
A new thriller mini series based on a book adaptation is currently being filmed in Bristol and at Bottle Yard Studios. The Killing Kind has been spotted on College Green, St John's Church and Avon Street as well as taking over a cafe in Bedminster and The Highbury Vaults pub on St Michael's Hill.
The Killing Kind is a film adaptation of a best-seller thriller novel starring Emma Appleton and Colin Morgan. It follows the story of Ingrid Lewis, a successful barrister who reconnects with a former accused and potentially-dangerous client just as things start to take a dramatic turn. The show is largely filmed in Bristol but the story is believed to be set in London. No air date has currently been released.
The Lazarus Project, Sky
Bristol locations, 2023
Both seasons one and two of this Sky TV series have been shot across various different Bristol locations. Filming for the second series is rumoured to have recently wrapped, after more filming in Bedminster businesses and a pub in Easton, including the same cafe on East Street used for The Killing Kind.
Written by Joe Barton, it features a character called George (Paapa Essiedu) who wakes up one morning and discovers the calendar has been rewound six months, finding himself in a world with continuous apocalyptic threat and facing a life-changing dilemma. It's up to him alone to save the world as he keeps waking up on July 1. Sky has confirmed season two will arrive this year.
Rivals, Disney+
TBY2
Rivals is an eight-part saga being filmed for Disney+ at TBY2, making it one of the first shows to use Bristol's new Hollywood-level, state-of-the-art facility in Hengrove. A lengthy shoot got under way at the beginning of March, with no air date confirmed as of yet.
Based on a best-selling novel by Jilly Cooper, Rivals is set in the 1980s in the fictional upper-class county of Rutshire focusing on a long-standing rivalry between two powerful men that is about to boil over. Ex-Olympian, Member of Parliament, and womaniser Rupert Campbell-Black, and his Rutshire neighbour Tony Baddingham, controller of the independent TV franchise Corinium Television.
Alex Rider, Amazon
TBY2, Bristol locations
The previous season of Alex Rider was filmed at almost 20 separate known locations around Bristol and season 3 is looking no different. The latest season has been spotted around the city centre, including Dareshack coffee house and in the Old City, as well as on studio sets in TBY2.
This coming-of-age series that follows teenage spy Alex Rider is based on the popular book franchise written by Anthony Horowitz, which has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. It's set for release some time this year.
Ruby Speaking, ITV
Various Bristol Locations
New comedy series Ruby Speaking stars Bristol’s own Jayde Adams and Joe Sims in an ensemble of workers at Hellocom, a fictional call centre in South Bristol. The series has largely been filmed inside a regular office for the past few months and in Totterdown for the exterior shots, and filled the terraced streets behind the Thunderbolt pub up to Vale Street for all the action that takes place outdoors
Showrunner Jayde Adams told Bristol Live that she wanted to create a show that truly represented the area of Bristol she grew up in. “We had a rule that there would be none of that - no shots of the Suspension Bridge or any of that,” she said. “We wanted to make this about very specifically South Bristol, so it’s set in South Bristol, and the outside bits you see are just Totterdown."
Filming wrapped in February and is set to be on our screens later this year.
Andy's Global Adventures, CBeebies
The Bottle Yard Studios
This children's show follows Andy, Jen and Scout travelling the world in their eco-friendly explorer in a series of global adventures, solving nature’s mysteries and discovering incredible animal behaviour. The CBeebies series is being shot at the Bottle Yard Studios using the greenscreen.
Filmed last year and set to air soon
- Rain Dogs - airing in the US on HBO now, coming to BBC next month.
- The Winter King - based at Patchway and built major medieval sets at Blaise Castle, filming at that Bristol location wrapped just before Christmas, but the full series wrap was in February 2023.
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Sanditon series 3 - airing in the US from this Sunday, March 19, coming to ITV soon after.
- Black Cake - produced by Oprah Winfrey's TV company
- The Sixth Commandment
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