London Underground in popular culture
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The London Underground has long provided inspiration in various areas of popular culture.
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[edit] Film and television
Filming is now managed all over the system but most commonly takes place at stations like Aldwych (a disused tube station), formerly on the Piccadilly Line, or the non-operational Jubilee Line complex in Charing Cross. The Waterloo and City Line has occasionally been used for filming as it is closed on Sundays.
The London Underground Film Office handles over 100 requests a month which proves that this iconic brand is now more important than ever to film makers producing a film in the Capital.
- The 1926 film The Lodger was the first feature directed by Alfred Hitchcock, in which he makes a cameo appearance as a passenger on a tube train.
- The 1928 film Underground, directed by Anthony Asquith, is a murder mystery set in the tube, much of which was shot on location in London Underground stations and on trains.
- The 1967 film Quatermass and the Pit (U.S. title: Five Million Years to Earth) revolves around alien bodies and spacecraft being discovered in the fictional Hobbs End tube station.
- The 1968 Doctor Who serial The Web of Fear is set in the tunnels of the Underground and deals with an invasion by robotic Yeti. In the 1986 serial The Mysterious Planet, the Doctor and his companion discover an underground civilisation in the ruins of Marble Arch tube station on a future Earth.
- There is a sub-genre of horror based on subterranean humans living in disused sections of the London Underground and preying on any unlucky commuters they find. These include the 1972 film Death Line and 2004's Creep.
- The secret lab in the 1970s TV series The Tomorrow People was in a disused Underground station.
- In the 1981 film An American Werewolf in London, Tottenham Court Road Underground station is among the many London landmarks where the titular werewolf attacks.
- The 1987 film The Fourth Protocol features a double agent being followed on the Piccadilly Line between Hyde Park Corner and Green Park, although shot on the Jubilee line between Charing Cross and Green Park. Later in the film, Michael Caine takes his vengeance out on two racist yobs who are causing disruption in the carriage in which he is travelling.
- According to Kevin Kline's character Otto in the movie A Fish Called Wanda, the London Underground is a political movement.
- The 1998 film Sliding Doors shows two parallel universes, hinging on whether the central character (Gwyneth Paltrow) catches a particular Tube train or not.
- The 1999 film Tube Tales features nine stories based on true-life experiences of London Underground passengers
- Die Another Day (2002) features the fictional defunct Vauxhall Cross tube station.
- In the 2002 film 28 Days Later, two of the characters use a sweetshop in the Underground station at Canary Wharf as a hideout in the early part of the film.
- In the 2006 film V for Vendetta, Aldwych is used for some of the scenes in the film.
- The Good Shepherd (2006) and Atonement (2007) include scenes shot at Aldwych.
- The 2007 ITV thriller series Primeval featured the Underground in the second episode of the series. In it, a time anomaly leading to the Late Carboniferous era opens and releases giant extinct insects such as Arthropleura and an unknown species of spider.
- The 2007 Sky Three documentary series "The Tube" use the London Underground in all of their episodes, including the London Underground depot (21st July 2007) and the London Transport Museum (28th July 2007)
- The 2008 feature film Three and Out, starring Mackenzie Crook, is centered around a London Underground driver.
Although not "filmed" as such on the Underground, there have been two animated children's television series set on and around it. The first was Tube Mice, a 1988 series concerning the adventures of a group of mice living on the Underground. The second was the 2006 series Underground Ernie, set on a fantasy version of the network and featuring a friendly Underground supervisor and his talking trains. There was also a 2004 animated short, also called Tube Mice, about mice who keep the Underground in order.
The Tube has also been used for many other major films including Bridget Jones' Diary I & II , Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Code 46, Agent Cody Banks II, Love Actually, Bourne Ultimatum, to name just a few, as well as BBC dramas such as Spooks and Hustle, and the upcoming film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.
[edit] Video games
- A level in Tomb Raider 3 is set in the disued Aldwych station
- The external architecture of many stations is central London are accurately rendered in The Getaway, including the surviving fragment of City Road station.
- A miniaturized version of the underground is featured in Midtown Madness 2.
- In Hellgate London, the survivors of the end of the world live in several Underground stations
[edit] Art
The Great Bear by Simon Patterson in 1992 was a modified Tube Map. "Adapting the official map of the London Underground, Patterson has replaced the names of stations with philosophers, actors, politicians and other celebrated figures. The title The Great Bear refers to the constellation Ursa Major, a punning reference to Patterson's own arrangement of stars. Patterson playfully subverts our belief that maps and diagrams provide a reliable source of information. "I like disrupting something people take as read", he comments." (from the entry by the Tate Gallery)
[edit] Music
- Amateur Transplants has written and performed a song, also called "London Underground" (see London Underground Song lyrics), which deals with many of the gripes commuters encounter while taking the Tube. This has also been incorporated into a flash animation.[1]
- Paul Weller of the band The Jam wrote the song "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight".
- Cry, the second single from Alex Parks, features scenes from Charing Cross and Green Park tube station in its video.
- The 1950 song The Underground Train written and performed by Lord Kitchener describes the practical difficulties faced by post-war Afro-Caribbean immigrants to London in understanding the complexities of the tube network.
- The song Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks features the line, "Millions of people swarming like flies round Waterloo Underground".
- UK 60s band Mood Reaction had a hit with the song "All Change For The Bakerloo Line" as did The New Vaudeville Band with "Finchley Central", both using tube station names in the title.
- Before renaming themselves Edwards Hand, the late-60s pop duo made up of Rod Edwards and Roger Hand went by the name of Piccadilly Line.
- The inner cover of the album Modern Life is Rubbish by Blur features a painting of a dejected looking Blur sitting inside London Underground 1983 Stock with its famous spring grab handles hanging from the roof.
- The song Clark Gable by The Postal Service contains the line "I was waiting for a cross-town train in the London underground when it struck me".
- The song Lean On Me I Won't Fall Over by Carter USM contains the lines "Causing chaos and delay on the underground" and "Stuck in a tunnel on the Hammersmith and City line". [2] The Final Comedown by the same group contains the lines "I've looted and I've begged / on the tubes of The Bec and Broadway". [3]
- The Bloc Party song Waiting For the 7.18 appropriately declares the Northern Line as "the loudest."
[edit] Literature
- Neil Gaiman's novel Neverwhere and the BBC television production of the same name are set in a world connected to our own that parallels the structure of the London Underground.
- In the graphic novel and movie V for Vendetta, the Guy Fawkes-esque anti-hero has his lair in the Underground and makes use of the tunnels for his anarchistic actions against the fascist government.
- In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore has a scar in the exact shape of the London Underground map on his left knee[4]. Dumbledore says that scars have meaning, but none is given for his scar to date. Rowling says she is very fond of the scar and we may find out the meaning of it someday.[5] Later, Harry and Hagrid ride the Underground to Charing Cross Road in order to visit the Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley.
- In the novel Tunnel Vision, a young man must win a bet by travelling through every Underground station in nineteen hours. The book even features the famous tube map inside the cover and tube routes to headline each chapter.
- London Transports is a collection of short stories by Maeve Binchy concerned with the lives and activities of people travelling on the Central and Victoria lines.
- Geoff Ryman's novel 253 tells the story of each of the 253 passengers (plus the conductor) on the Bakerloo Line between Embankment station and Elephant & Castle.
- Alex Garland's short novel 'The Coma' begins with the main character being brutally assaulted on a late-night Tube train.
- King Solomon's Carpet is a novel by Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell) about the London Underground and the people frequenting it; including ordinary passengers, tube aficionados, pickpockets, buskers, vigilantes, and children who go "sledging" on the roofs of cars as an initiation rite.
- The Metropolitan Line and the area it serves feature prominently in Julian Barnes's 1980 novel Metroland and the 1997 film of the same name.
[edit] Legends
There are reports of the London Underground being haunted. Some of the most famous ghost stories include Anne Naylor, who was murdered in 1758 and is said to haunt Farringdon Station.[citation needed] Her screams are said to be heard, by passengers, as the last train leaves.[citation needed] Actor William Terriss, who was stabbed to death in 1897, is said to haunt Covent Garden tube station, although the last reported sighting was 1972.[1] Tube drivers report that the Kennington Loop on the Northern Line is haunted.[citation needed] Bethnal Green station is another station believed to be haunted,[citation needed] and the screams of women and children can be heard from the stairwell and ticket hall.[citation needed] It is believed that this is because of the 173 people crushed to death in the stairway during World War 2.[citation needed]
[edit] Other
- The Underground features in the board games Scotland Yard, The London Game and On the Underground.
- The Underground features in the RPG Hellgate: London as an underground labyrinth in a demon occupied London. The train stations are considered the only safe havens in the game, where the character can shop, stockpile on supplies, upgrade equipment, seek healing by a medic, gather information, and receive/complete quests.
- A truly trivial game relating to the Underground is Mornington Crescent.
- One Stop Short of Barking - Uncovering the London Underground - a humorous guide book to travelling on the London Underground includes popular cultural references, history and tube etiquette.
- A less-advisable game is the Circle Line pub crawl, involving alighting at each station, visiting a pub, then travelling to the next. This is popular with ex-pats.[citation needed]
- A false facade hides Underground tracks from view at Leinster Gardens.
- There is a Guinness World Record for visiting all London Underground stations in the shortest time, informally known as the Tube Challenge.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- London Underground Film Office
- Going Underground's - London Underground in Film and TV
- Nick Cooper's - London Underground in Film and TV
