Return to the Circus - Smiley's People Locations

POSTED BY CHRIS

We recently revealed where the BBC filmed both the exteriors and interiors of 'The Circus' in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and in this article we're going to do the same thing for Smiley's People. Although there were many differences between the two productions, they tried to maintain the canon and so we'll start by returning to the pavements of Cambridge Circus, London WC2.

In episode four at 51:22 we see an establishing shot of the Palace Theatre with Smiley's taxi on the roundabout.

It's part pedestrianised, part crossroads these days.

Readers of Smiley's People Paris Locations Part Seven may imagine the scene on the pavement having seen the crew in action behind the camera in the Ciclic film

The BBC's film department were again on hand including Malcom Webberley who, once again, would be BAFTA nominated for best film sound. The BBC Written Archives informs us that Production Manager Jeremy Silberston was specifically retained for Smiley's People because of his connections with the proprietors of certain locations. Series cinematographer Kenneth Macmillan and director Simon Langton replaced Tony Pierce-Roberts and John Irvin respectively from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - their eventual recruitment added to delays in pre-production for Smiley's People.

At 51.32 Macmillan's 16mm Eclair NPR pans up to the face of number 24 Cambridge Circus for that iconic shot, this time with no lights on to indicate who is in the building. 

At 51:36 Smiley and Gulliam leave their taxi and walk across Shaftesbury Avenue in the direction of the door at number 115...

...which appears to be the side entrance to McDonalds. By the way, just opposite is FOPP where I've bought copies of the DVD's of the adaptations, pointing out to their staff that 'The Circus' is just across the road.

Gerhard Schreurs writing in 2015, takes up the story...

But the camera does not capture the men actually entering that door, suggesting that the BBC may not have bothered to ask for permission to use that door, or failed to get it. The next shot shows Smiley and Guillam entering a similar door from an inside view and walking along long corridors, guided by Ferguson, to meet Enderby and get means and support from him to turn Grigoriev in Bern. This inside shot was made in another building; the corridor lengths wouldn't possibly fit number 24's dimensions. 

He must mean this from 51.40.

The picture above shows the light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Why is that? This is due to what is described in The Honourable Schoolboy as 'The Fall'. In Tinker Tailor the mole is discovered and at the beginning of the next novel the extent of his treachery is revealed. From page 59, le Carré writes concerning Smiley's discovery that Circus listening devices went missing in 1966, when the interior of the building was altered. The ferrets found some of the devices in a first sweep and then, when they got the drills out, found more embedded in the walls all tuned to frequencies not used by the Circus. Whilst some of the damage was attended to, presumably the dangling electical cables indicate that the budget had only stretched so far. This is why, when Enderby welcomes Smiley to the meeting, he refers to having "blown the dust out".

Then there's these...

To me, that's a different building and unlike Clarebell House we can't prove where. However we have an address. As a result of Control's examination of Alec Guinness's diaries at The British Library we can report that on the 25th of August 1981 he filmed in passageways in a building at King Charles II Street, London SW1.

Wikipedia reports that MI5 had offices at number 16. We've seen how the Corporation ended up filming interiors where the services had theirs, it's got to be a possibility.  So I went there. Again, no access but there's a lead. This time the current occupiers of the building are BAFTA. One for the future.

From 52:05 Smiley's meeting with Enderby commences with Michael Byrne playing Peter Guilliam, Michael Jayston's unavailability being one of the results of the protracted pre-production.

Sadly, we don't know where the scene was filmed. It's not mentioned at all in Guinness's diary and neither are there any references to rehearsals for it, which he frequently mentions in regard to other much smaller scenes. It wasn't a set - like Tinker Tailor, we believe only one small scene in Smiley's People was filmed at Ealing Studios. However, fortunately, Guinness's diary gives us a concrete and substantiable lead for the next location. Now into Episode 5, at 14.53 Enderby invites Smiley for their personal meeting in the garden and Guinness records that on August 25th 1981, he continued acting with Barry Foster until 2am at Dial House on Shaftesbury Avenue!

Dial House? It took some searching before the internet revealed Dial House at 151 Shaftesbury Avenue WC2H 8BA was occupied by British Telecom. This time, because it's an exterior, we can substantiate the location. 

At 14:59, as Barry Foster walks into shot, looking north-west we see Centre Point on the right, located where Tottenham Court Road meets Oxford Street and the British Telecom Tower on the left in Fitzrovia.

Then at 15.07 the camera faces south-west and behind Smiley we see the steelwork of the building at 125 Shaftesbury Avenue that was completed the following year. 

By 16.10 they've walked into a shot that shows the microwave dish on the roof. Referring back to le Carré's novel he writes

...the roof, where a plantation of aerials made wild patterns against the sky;

The dish seen is a grid antenna, its direction being unaffected by wind.

I have my concerns about that grid antenna. We can see that Dial House has a raised part of the roof so wouldn't any real and existing communication equipment be positioned there as opposed to being on a lower level? Secondly wouldn't their dishes be more substantial? Wouldn't there be more of them too? 

I suspect that dish was positioned by Austin Sprigg's art department. It's probably set dressing and they chose a grid antenna as it would be lighter and so easier to move around.

Later we see another view of the dish.

In addition to the map above, the photograph below, (although taken from a location to the west of Dial House) offers an attractive panorama of West London. The skyscraper nearest to the British Telecom Tower is Euston Tower.

After Smiley requests a safe house near London airport, at 16.22 director Simon Langton positions the camera to depict the capital's nightlife. Looking down to pavement level, an attractive rotating sign is seen.

When I wrote my original locations guide as a result of memories of London I thought it was the Swiss Centre at Leicester Square but it's obviously not and it took some searching before I discovered that it was the ABC Cinema at 135 Shaftesbury Avenue.

Superman III and Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life dates this photo to 1983, a couple of years after filming, but the building goes back much further as it was originally the Saville Theatre.

Because the scene is filmed on the roof we can substantiate the location with reference to streetviews. The most famous part of Shaftesbury Avenue is to the west, but these buildings are located further east between Charing Cross Road and New Oxford Street and in the London Borough of Camden. All are on the northern side of the avenue.

Firstly here's the building at 125 Shaftesbury Avenue that we see being built during the filming of Smiley's People.

Then next door is what is now The Odeon Covent Garden at 135 Shaftesbury Avenue. 

From the past I have found this illuminating photograph of the same building. 

The film Paradise Road is an Australian war movie and along with Wilde they date this photograph to 1997. As can be seen, whilst the frieze remains, the A, B and C illuminated signs have been removed together with the one recording that the cinema was operated by EMI. 

In the background is one of the few images available of Dial House at 151 Shaftesbury Avenue. Obviously, we predate Google Maps here so there's no aerial or streetview cover but in the background we can make out the shape of British Telecom's building and at its foot pick out the orange and green barriers that unfortunately indicate its imminent demise. Dial House, the location where Smiley and Enderby go into the garden was demolished and replaced by Shaftesbury House in 2002.

Unfortunately it is difficult to find suitable photographs of Shaftesbury House not least because of the foilage of the London Plane trees that afford the Avenue's name. 

Still more difficult is to find photographs of Dial House before it. Whilst so many images of buildings in London dating from antiquity exist, even photographs of buildings lost to the Luftwaffe's bombing in the Second World War, so many of those those lost through redevelopment in the later half of the Twentieth Century appear to have gone with scant record retained. 

However a variation of my search terms bore fruit. Rather than search for Dial House Shaftesbury Avenue, just Office Building 151 Shaftesbury Avenue led to this

This is an occasion when aerial or even birds-eye view would be really useful because we could have zoomed right down to London Station's rooftop parabolic aerials but even from ground level we can make out that Guinness and Foster were on the top of the left hand side of the roof and Kenneth Macmillan's camera was raised up on the ledge that comes out at a right angle (see image below).

Clearly visible too is the white stone detail on the top story seen in shot. If you look down below the actors you can see the floor of the level below running round the outside of the building. So it looks like the camera and performers were on the same level but the production team raised the camera up on the ledge so they could tilt down to capture the street below in the shot.

And a little more of the nature of Dial House has come to light. 

Although I have discovered the General Post Office assigned it the code of DLH-WC, whether that confirms that it was really a telephone exchange, with rows of telephonists saying ''putting you through, caller'' isn't clear. Although there are many fascinating photographs available of exchanges, Dial House isn't included.

In Calls Of Duty: Thirty Years In Telecoms, Raphael Channer refers to Dial House twice. Firstly:

I made my way anxiously along Shaftesbury Avenue towards (I kid you not) Dial House, where the district board members' offices were located.

and secondly refers to how they were entertained...

There was a sizeable, subsidised staff bar on the top floor of Dial House, open to employees Monday to Friday lunchtimes, early evenings and on certain nights when it hosted particular events or parties.

Well that figures doesn't it.  Trust the Corporation to find somewhere where cast and crew could imbibe. No wonder they finished at two o'clock in the morning! 😀 Channer's comment about the building's name allows us to explore another query too. Is it called Dial House because it's near to the Seven Dials part of Covent Garden (see photo below) or has it something to do with dialling a number. 

Writing in All My Yesterdays, G.I.R. Pearce say's it's the former...

In 1972 I moved to 'Dial House' our head office at 151-165 Shaftesbury Avenue. As a matter of interest, contrary to general opinion, the name of this building had nothing whatsoever to do with its association with telephones! It derived from its close proximity to the multiple crossroads at the top of Shaftesbury Avenue where seven streets converge, named Seven Dials. All readers of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novels will surely recall "The Case of the Seven Dials' being one of Mr Sherlock Holme's most intriguing cases.

But it turns out that there's a few Dial Houses around, here's an inside look at the one in Manchester. It's a lovely idea that all exchanges are called Dial House. Blurring the distinction between fiction and fact I know that someone's going to tell us that there's no pictures of Dial House because telephone exchanges are subject to The Act.

On the subject of the law, whilst it might be that British Telecom occupied more than one property on Shaftesbury Avenue, Dial House might have been the scene of a particularly gristly crime. I am indebted to Mike at Murder Mile UK True Crime. The nature of the victims work offering more support to the conclusion that those employed performed an administrative function.

Since the subject of Covent Garden has been raised, it's worth mentioning that Barry Foster had previous in the area. In Frenzy, the penultimate Hitchcock movie, his character Rusk lived at No 3 Henrietta Street,(below) just around the corner.

If you are able to add any information or photos about any of the locations in this article please don't hesitate to get in touch with us at guinnessissmiley@icloud.com 

In the near future we're going to make another revelation made possible through this website's original research. We will identify the location of the London airport safe house that is seen immediately after this Dial House scene.