TV studio or national heritage site? Wandering around a former distillery in east London, it’s hard to tell. “We had horses in here the other day!” a set worker shouts as we walk through a wood-panelled grand hall. In the next room, study the intricate 18th-century wall murals closely and – oh! – titillating depictions from the Kama Sutra are hiding in plain sight. Gold candlesticks and fake flames are everywhere. Women strut past in huge corset dresses, while bored extras dressed as serfs wait in the shadows and scroll on their phones. I’m led to another ornately decorated bedroom, with a huge map of imperial Russia pinned on the wall, and take a seat at the end of a familiar four-poster. It is the bed in which I have seen Catherine the Great romp with her lovers many a time.
This is the extraordinary set of Tony McNamara’s racy and radical period comedy-drama, The Great – a very fictional take on Peter III and Catherine’s rulership of Russia, starring Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult. Now in its third season, filming is well under way when I visit on a sticky summer day, but that doesn’t stop this close-knit cast and crew from having afterwork fun – tonight it is an 80s-themed roller disco that Hoult has organised.
