If you’re wondering where Platform 7 was filmed and what it’s based on you’re probably not alone.
Bringing together thriller and supernatural elements, Platform 7 is a haunting new ITVX series that's got us talking. The four-part series stars Top Boy’s Jasmine Jobson as Lisa, a woman whose memories start to resurface after she witnesses a traumatic event at a railway station. She comes to connect what she’s seen with her own life and in doing so makes a heart-breaking discovery. With so many revelations to be made and a station as a key focus of the show, some viewers might be wondering about the filming locations and the inspiration for the story and setting.
Here we reveal what Platform 7 was based on, where it was filmed and set and all we know about when it might be shown on ITV.
*Warning: Spoilers ahead*
What is Platform 7 based on?
Like so many other thrillers in recent months alone, including Netflix's Bodies, Platform 7 is based on a book of the same name. Written by Louise Doughty, Platform 7 was released in 2019 and it went on to become a huge best-seller, so we’re hardly surprised that four years later it’s been adapted into a four-part series.
As in the book that Platform 7 is based on, the show’s story focuses on Lisa who witnesses a huge and heart-breaking event take place on a station platform - the titular Platform 7. This leads her to confront a mystery in her own life as her fragmented memories come back to haunt her in the aftermath of what she’s seen.
There is an element of the supernatural in both the Platform 7 book and show, with a major perspective-shifting reveal made relatively early on in the four-part series that explains Lisa being so entwined with the railway station. From there, the audience is taken on a journey through Lisa’s life and experiences as she starts to put pieces together that form a devastating picture.
Where was Platform 7 filmed and where is the book set?
Given that a station is key to the ITVX show’s heart-wrenching events, many fans might be wondering where Platform 7 was filmed. The ITVX drama was filmed largely in the Leeds suburb of Chapel Allerton. Cast and crew spotted filming on Harrogate Road and at the florist, Perfumed Garden, which they transformed into the show’s florist shop, Forget Me Not, whilst the exact station where Platform 7 was filmed is sadly unknown.
In the show it appears to be called simply Great Central station and there are no specifics detailed and nothing obvious on the platforms to indicate a precise location. However, in the Platform 7 book the events take place at Peterborough Station in Cambridgeshire, which doesn’t resemble the platforms seen in the show. This setting was a very deliberate decision made by Platform 7’s bestselling writer Louise Doughty.
She previously revealed to Press Party that she’d chosen to set her Platform 7 novel at Peterborough railway station because of the “long relationship” she’s had with it and how many times she’s changed services there herself.
“The novel version of Platform 7 was set on Peterborough railway station and it's a station that I've had a long relationship with. I grew up in the East Midlands, went to university in Leeds, which involved changing trains at Peterborough,” she said. “[T]hen I did a postgrad in Norwich which meant I had to change chains at Peterborough and I then moved to London for the next 30 years of my life and whenever I went home I had to change trains at Peterborough.”
Louise then went on to explain how her experiences directly inspired Lisa’s story in the Platform 7 book - and now the ITVX series. It was waiting at Peterborough Station on “many a cold winter night” where she’d missed a connection that led her to have a “standing joke” that ended up becoming the premise of the novel.
She said, “I used to have a standing joke that if I had been bad and died and went to purgatory, I would find myself trapped on Peterborough railway station on a freezing November night. That's where the idea came from: a railway station as a metaphor for purgatory, and a young woman who has died there in mysterious circumstances and is trapped there until the mystery of her death is solved.”
When is Platform 7 on ITV?
Thriller fans and Platform 7 book readers who want to see how the show compares can currently enjoy streaming all four episodes via ITVX. However, if you prefer watching your favourite dramas in a specific weekly scheduling slot on TV then it seems you could be in for quite a wait before it airs on ITV, likely until 2024. Platform 7 is an ITVX premiere show, meaning all episodes have landed in one go on ITV’s streaming service but it’s not currently airing on any of ITV’s channels.
The broadcaster has previously confirmed that Platform 7 is “exclusive to ITV’s new free streaming service” and stated that it would be arriving there “many months ahead of linear transmission on the ITV main channel”. Given that Platform 7 only premiered on ITVX on 7th December this suggests that it will definitely be 2024 before it airs on TV.
This isn’t the first time ITV have released a highly publicised show on ITVX ahead of it airing week by week. The same thing happened with A Spy Among Friends and Litvinenko which both landed on ITVX in December 2022 and only aired on ITV in July and June 2023 respectively.
In light of this it wouldn’t be surprising if prospective viewers had to wait until the summer of 2024 to be able to watch Platform 7 on ITV.
