The presence of the great Olivia Colman, fresh from Oscar success in The Favourite and a Golden Globe for The Crown, is always enough, but Empire of Light is certainly a tempting prospect for drama lovers. Written and directed by Sam Mendes, who brought us 1917 as well as Bond films Spectre and Skyfall, it’s set in the fast-changing Britain of the early 1980s and centres on the odd-couple relationship of Hilary (Colman), manager of a cinema in a faded seaside town, and new employee Stephen (Micheal Ward).
For these two, the sense of freedom and opportunity just beyond reach is given by the contrast of rundown buildings sitting alongside the beauty of the coast, making the location an essential part of the film. For this, Mendes chose Margate, a great British resort of the Victorian era, now revitalised by the arrival of the Turner Contemporary museum and new hotels and bars, but at the time the film is set a place in seemingly terminal decline. “I was drawn to this particular place because it offered so much opportunity in the scale of the visual landscape,” he explained at the launch of the film, referring to the inspiration the town gave painter JMW Turner and poet TS Eliot. “There’s a breadth about the place, which gives it poetry and a cinematic scope.”
Once the town had been identified as the setting, the production rolled in to give the landscape a definitive early-Eighties feel. In some cases, locations were used as they still are but for others a full refit was needed, with the crew in residence for six months from November 2021.
Dreamland Margate
For the Empire Cinema, where Hilary and Stephen work, the production took over the Dreamland complex on Marine Terrace, on the town’s seafront. Opened as an amusement park in 1880 and named Dreamland in 1920, this was famed for its scenic rollercoaster and went through many transformations over the years, eventually falling into disrepair before a refurbishment in 2017.
As a classic British seaside park, it has appeared on screen often, most recently in the final series of Killing Eve. It was chosen by production designer Mark Tildesley, who said of it, “There’s an extraordinary Art Deco glory to it – there’s a sense that it was built in the 1930s and now it’s 1980 and it’s beginning to creak and crumble. It’s an analogy with the story – the lead characters are weathered and broken people, and they need care and healing and mending.”
Once chosen, Mendes partially rewrote his script to feature it in all its glory, but the production team had their work cut out to transform it into an authentic 1980s cinema. The main auditorium, now a bingo hall, was converted into the cinema itself, the ballroom and ladies toilets were restored, and the neon light on the frontage was changed to read “Empire”. The production also made use of Dreamland’s other amusements, including the Retro Roller Room and the fun fair rides for scenes with Hilary and Stephen, but for the cinema foyer a set was built along the road in a vacant lot, taking in the lobby with full sweeping staircase and a new doorway that looked directly out onto the sea.
The seafront
Besides Dreamland, the Margate seafront became the backdrop to much of the film. We see the main sands and the Nayland Rock Shelter on the Promenade, famed as the place where TS Eliot wrote a section of The Waste Land. The Sands Café and Marina Café, both on Marine Drive overlooking the beach, both also feature as locations.
All along the seafront, meanwhile, shops and stalls were redressed to match the period, complete with time-specific billboards and posters, and lights were strung along the Promenade to light the night scenes. The town was also treated to an unseasonal fake snowfall and a firework display over the bay, witnessed by Hilary and Stephen from the upper level of the Empire.
The Old Town
Lying behind The Parade and the seafront, Margate’s historic neighbourhood also played its part. The Mayor’s Parlour, a municipal building housed in the former Town Hall on Market Street, became a doctor’s office. Café Darcy on Marine Gardens was converted into a chemist while Wildes, a bar and restaurant on Market Place, played itself.
Cliftonville
This neighbourhood to the east of the town, now a centre of Margate’s revival, is where we find Hilary’s flat, and we see her around Ethelbert Terrace and Cliff Terrace, as well as passing the Winter Gardens, another legacy of the Victorian era. Stephen’s flat, by contrast, is in Arlington House, to the west of Dreamland, a Brutalist apartment block built in the mid-Sixties.
Broadstairs
For the cinema staff’s day out, we are along the coast to the east, in the resort town of Broadstairs. Here, filming was at Lillyputt Mini Golf, with the promenade and bandstand of Victoria Gardens, built at the end of the 19th century, also featured.
Manston Airport
This disused airfield to the south-west of Margate was used to build further sets. These included the interior of Hilary’s and Stephen’s flats, and also the cinema projection room where we see Norman (Toby Jones) at work. The passenger terminal was also given a makeover to become the front desk of the hospital A&E department.
Worthing
We also leave Margate to visit the Pavilion Theatre and Pier Pavilion on Marine Parade in Worthing, on the south coast. Olivia Colman also filmed here in 2022 for another British film, also featuring Timothy Spall and Jessie Buckley, the period comedy-drama Wicked Little Letters.
Camber
For the glorious beach scenes shared between Hilary and Stephen we’re also on the south coast, at Camber Sands near Rye. This famed seaside resort, long a centre for holiday camps, has a rich screen CV that includes Carry On Follow That Camel (where it stood in for North African desert), Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything and Ricky Gervais’s After Life.
Shepherdswell
At the end of the film, we see Stephen in Margate Railway Station and then on a train. For this, the production used The East Kent Railway, a vintage railway that runs for two and a half miles between Shepherdswell and Eythorne through the Kent countryside. As well as the usual steam locomotives, it also has the later-vintage trains required for Empire of Light’s period, ensuring the film’s meticulous attention to detail was sustained.
Empire of Light is in cinemas now.