You may know what MobLand is – a starry new crime show with Guy Ritchie behind the camera and Tom Hardy, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan in front of it – but do you know where it is?
Set in London and the Cotswolds, the world-building behind Paramount+’s gangster thriller is equal parts The Long Good Friday and Country Life. It’s turf that will be familiar to fans of Guy Ritchie’s work from Netflix series The Gentleman to OG cockney caper Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
But there’s something different going on here, says the show’s supervising location manager Steve Mortimore. The tone is more Top Boy than Lock, Stock, with Ritchie parking his guns-and-geezers signature style; the show’s East End underworld is new terrain.
‘We didn’t want to copy any of The Gentleman locations,’ says Mortimore. ‘We wanted it to be completely fresh.’
The locations guru – a veteran of films from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to Ridley Scott’s Napoleon – takes us on a tour of MobLand’s crime black spots.
What is MobLand about?
Created by Top Boy’s Ronan Bennett, with some script input from Jez ‘Jerusalem’ Butterworth, MobLand was originally conceived as a spinoff of Showtime series Ray Donovan in which Liev Schreiber played an LA gangland fixer.
This time it’s Tom Hardy’s Harry Da Souza who is the fixer. He works for London-based Irish crime family the Harrigan and it’s his job to facilitate the deals of urbane patriarch Conrad Harrigan (Pierce Brosnan) and his scheming wife Maeve (Helen Mirren, joining Brosnan for a The Long Good Friday reunion).
He also has clear up after Conrad’s messy, coke-addled grandson Eddie Harrigan (Pistol’s Anson Boon), who gets caught up in the disappearance of rival gangster Richie Stevenson’s (Geoff Bell, RocknRolla) son.
Can Harry nip this nascent gang war in the bud or will the Stevensons and Harrigan go to the mattresses?
Where was MobLand filmed?
The opening shootout – The Midland Grand at the St Pancras Hotel
The first scene in episode 1 establishes the stakes straightaway: keep the Harrigans sweet or pay the price. As Hardy’s Da Souza arbitrates between feuding gangs in the kitchen below, Brosnan’s Conrad Harrigan enjoys a solo dinner in the restaurant above. ‘We shot the scene with Pierce in The Midland Grand at the St Pancras Hotel,’ says Mortimore. ‘It felt like a Sopranos moment.’
The confrontation taking place below was actually filmed elsewhere. ‘The hotel kitchen wasn’t right, but I found this smoked fish factory in Chalk Farm that had such scale,’ he says. ‘There were a few complaints about the fish smell – I remember Tom Hardy came in, squeezed his nose and smiled.’
The Harrigans’ country pile – Gloucestershire
‘It’s a private residence near Stow-on-the-Wold,’ says Mortimore of the Harrigans’ Cotswolds home. ‘We didn’t want to go too The Gentleman with a huge mansion.’ In the series, Conrad unwinds from his dirty deeds by fishing in its lake. ‘It was scripted as a river at the start and we found some houses that had a river, but the practicalities of doing it on a river for real were too much.’
Harry Da Souza’s London apartment – Charing Cross
Harry and his long-suffering wife Jan (Downton Abbey’s Joanne Froggatt) live in a top-floor pad with Thames views that was originally scripted for Docklands. ‘It’s a penthouse on the 7th floor of a building along from Charing Cross Station,’ says Mortimore. ‘Filming there was hard work, but it was worth it. The views are magnificent.’
The West End nightclub – Loulou’s in Mayfair
MobLand introduces the wayward Eddie Harrigan at a West End club, where he’s on a fateful tear-up with the son of a rival gangster clan. The scene was filmed at private members’ club Loulou’s, aka 5 Hertford Street, in W1. ‘We looked at clubs like Annabel’s [for the scene] but this one felt right,’ says Mortimore. ‘And it helped that Guy was a member too.’
Moody’s Gym – Peacock Gym, Canning Town
In the warring world of MobLand, Peacock Gym is a kind of Switzerland – a place for criminal foes to parlay unarmed and in accordance with the code of the underworld. ‘It’s an actual gym called Peacock Gym,’ says Mortimore. ‘[We] just moved a bit of equipment around and changed the name to “Moody’s” and shot it as it is. The environment outside is unbelievable – it takes you into that world.’
The club scene – FOLD nightclub, Canning Town
The early drama plays out when Eddie Harrigan’s night out results in a nightclub stabbing and a disappearance. The real club used was FOLD in Canning Town. ‘It’s up towards Stratford,’ says the location manager. ‘I’m sure [it] will be knocked down and redeveloped, so they’ll have to find another club for season two.’
Homerton Hospital – Hemel Hempstead Hospital
Tom Hardy’s enforcer puts the squeeze on a potential witness as he lies in a hospital bed in Homerton Hospital. The hospital? Not Homerton, as per the episode, but a disused wing at Hemel Hempstead Hospital. ‘There was no wings we could use at Homerton,’ says Mortimore. ‘It’s a busy hospital.’
The Sinful Monkey – The Tooke Arms, Isle of Dogs
‘This is Richie [Stevensons]’s south London base,’ says Mortimore. We were trying to get away from the classic boozer and we found this nice concrete estate pub. We filmed there six or seven times, and we didn’t dress a single thing.’
Kevin Harrigan’s yard – Leamouth, Canning Town
Another key MobLand location is the warehouse used by Conrad Harrigan’s son Kevin (Paddy Considine). ‘This is the underbelly of the family’s operations,’ explains Mortimore. ‘In this Guy Ritchie way, [we found] an old warehouse right on the river opposite The O2. It features in pretty much every episode.
Is there a trailer for MobLand?
Fackin’ right there is! Hit play on the YouTube below to watch it.
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The London spot where the gang’s hideout in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was filmed.
