The Watford Rods become part of Saxondale for the day

It all started with an email; "Steve Coogan is filming a new TV series and wants to set-up a scene with some cars for a day can you help out?". It seemed too good to be true, which on the internet usually means it is. But after some checking and a few emails to and from the production company, it turned out to be genuine... The original brief; "set-up a muscle car meet for the day". The location was the "Coach and Horses" at Croxley Green, a pub we know well, as it's been the Watford Rod's meeting pub for quite a while. After a phone around the club members, seeing who could make the date, we sent off some car photos. Knowing that we only have a few muscle cars in the club we also put out a call to other people within the scene. Within a few days we had organised enough cars to make it look "right", eventually only Mark Champion's Chevy represented the Watford's, but quite a few club members signed up as extras which increased the Watford Rod's presence. With filming looming they asked if we knew someone with a trade stand. Suzy was in the middle of preparing for the launch of SuzyRetro, so used this as the inaugural outing for the stand.

On the day, filming was scheduled to start at 11:30am, the trade stand started going up at 9am, and by 11am the extras and the cars had arrived, everything was ready.

Light, camera, action, action, action; As ever with filming it seemed to progress at a snails pace, with several scenes being re-shot over and over again, it might have been a forgotten line, or to try some modified dialogue or just to get it from a different angle. The filming was due to finish at 5pm, but, as is typical, it ran over. The lights were set up to finish off some of the scenes.
In the end, the day's filming ended up as a few minutes on screen.

Steve Coogan is a complete petrol-head and loved the sights and sounds of the day. He had a good look around, and studied under the bonnets of several of the cars, he was happy to just wander around and "mingle". I think he liked being in character, the make-up was so good that many people didn't recognise him, allowing him to wander around virtually incognito.

With filming complete, or should I say "in the can", there was a party atmosphere in the pub, with many of the extras and some of the cast and production crew staying on until late...

Notes: Although set in Stevenage, most of the scenes were shot around Watford, the shop scenes are the Market end of the Harlequin Centre.

Here are a few pictures from the day... Click on a picture for a bigger view