Plans to transform Pinewood into a complex rivalling Hollywood have been unveiled, with an impressive selection of purpose-built sets expanding east to the M25 from the current studio site. And therein lies the question. Sets resembling Downtown New York and Chinatown, Boston back onto the dreaded London ring road and, being cities, could quite happily accommodate the background drone of traffic, punctuated by the odd pile-up – but how will the planned ‘Roman amphitheatre’ fare? It conjures scenes in ‘Gladiator II’ of warriors discussing Rome’s terrible cart congestion problems during lulls in the fighting, and Ridley Scott tearing his hair out in the background. Second to consider is the light pollution from the road at night:
‘Flavius, an uncommon light dost bewitch my vision on this once clear Roman night. Curse the sorcery that beshrouds our once proud city.’
Digital technology is a wonderful thing, and will presumably be of great help in alleviating these problems. Still, the planned array of locales on offer is so broad – LA high school, Amsterdam, Venice, Medieval Castle – that the area could be quickly converted into a theme park should a dry spell emerge. One also hopes that the Downtown New York section does not plunge the much-publicised ‘mini-Manhattan’ skyline of Croydon (a practical but far from scenic London suburb) into crisis. Luckily for residents, plans are afoot (also known as the home of the ‘Croydon facelift’ – an extra tight ponytail, not a surgical procedure) to transform this ‘concrete hell’ into a modern-day Hanging Gardens Of Babylon.
News hour, with Jerry Caesar 