Celebration of film and television history in West Sussex, including Doctor Who, The Inbetweeners and Hollywood blockbusters

A celebration of film and television history in the Arun district and the surrounding area has been hosted in a one-day-only free event at Littlehampton Museum and Littlehampton Town Council’s Millennium Chamber.

Lights, Camera, Action! was run on Saturday, February 1, in collaboration with Arun Film, with a full programme of expert talks, rare film clips and behind-the-scenes stories, alongside a display exploring the history of Littlehampton’s cinemas to showcase items from the museum’s collections.

Arun Film gave an introduction looking at film and TV production in the Littlehampton area, as well as the history of the local cinemas.

Scenes shot in and around Littlehampton include Nelson (1918), Lobsters (1936), Doctor Who (1967-68 and 1975), Loot (1970), Minder (1980) and The Inbetweeners (2009).

The award-winning BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who began in 1963 and in the early days, when it was based in London, West Sussex provided many of the film locations.

Clymping beach doubled as Australia when the second Doctor, played by Patrick Troughton, was at the controls of the Tardis. The six-part story The Enemy of the World was based Down Under but it was the beach at Clymping that set the scene.

Between November 5 and 8, 1967 the Doctor Who team took up residence to film various scenes of this adventure, with Earth under threat from a power-hungry politician and scientist called Salamander, who was behind natural’ disasters such as flooding and earthquakes.

Littlehampton Gazette journalist Roy Arber observed at the time: "Considering the fact that there was a cold wind blowing and everyone was huddled to the eyebrows in sweaters and coats, I ddon’t think anyone present had imagination that would stretch to part of our beach being Australia."

A helicopter was used, as well as a hovercraft, loaned by a retired naval architect from Worthing called Mr K.R. Morgan.

Back then, Doctor Who was on our TV screens for 40 weeks of the year, albeit in 25-minute episodes, and the consequent rapid turnaround of production meant stories were seen just a few weeks after being filmed.

The Enemy of the World aired between December 23, 1967, and January 27, 1968. For decades, it was believed the early episodes were wiped by the BBC and only the third part of this story was known to still exist in the archives - ironically, the only one that did not feature Clymping. However, in 2013, the lost episodes were recovered in Nigeria and re-mastered for fans to watch for the first time in over 45 years.

The Clymping beach setting proved useful again seven years later, when it stood in for Scotland with the North Sea gently lapping at its shores, with filming taking place between March 17 and 21, 1975. This time, the Doctor, now in his fourth incarnation and played by Tom Baker, was facing the Loch Ness Monster.

Doctor Who being Doctor Who, of course, this mythical creature turned out to be an alien monster called a Skarasen, controlled by a race known as the Zygons, who were intent on taking over Earth after their home planet had been destroyed.

In Terror of the Zygons, aired between August 30 and September 20, 1975, the Skarasen had been destroying oil rigs, and a survivor is shown being washed up on the beach and staggering through the Clymping dunes, while Ambersham Common, to the south-east of Midhurst, was the arrival point for the Doctor and his companions, played by Elisabeth Sladen and Ian Marter.

The common became the fictitious Tullock Moor, across which the Doctor was chased by the Skarasen, and The Fox Goes Free pub at Charlton became the temporary headquarters of Unit, the military organisation dedicated to fighting the unknown which the Doctor helped as a scientific adviser.

The classic era of Doctor Who often used quarries as alien locations and for this story, the disused Hall Aggregates Quarry in Storrington became the site where the Zygons’ spaceship landed. Furnace Pond at Crabtree, near Lower Beeding, doubled for Loch Ness, from which the spaceship had emerged.

Season two of The Inbetweeners launched with The Field Trip, an episode was about a trip to the Dorset coast that was actually filmed in Littlehampton, including a boat trip on the River Arun.

Arun Films also had a brief look at films and TV shows made in and around Arundel and Bognor Regis, such as The Punch and Judy Man (1963), The Leather Boys (1964), Doctor Who (1988), The Madness of King George (1994), The Young Victoria (2009), Don't Forget The Driver (2019) and Wicked Little Letters (2024).

This time on Doctor Who, Colin Baker was the Gallifreyan hero, and on January 10, 1985, he and actress Nicola Bryant, playing companion Peri, were at Halnaker on the Goodwood Estate and Tangmere Aerodrome for Revelation of the Daleks.

The pair was about to stumble upon the Doctor’s most fearsome foe and their creator, Davros, on the planet Necros. Minor scenes were filmed here but a Dalek was present at Tangmere, where it was destroyed by another character, Orcini. This two-part story aired on March 23 and 30, 1985.

West Sussex played a much bigger part in the show’s 25th anniversary story, Silver Nemesis, in the summer of 1988. Sylvester McCoy was in the title role as the seventh incarnation of the Doctor, with his companion played by Sophie Aldred.

The three-part story was set in the 17th century and the modern day. It was filmed entirely on location and West Sussex featured in most of the scenes, with Arundel Castle doubling for Windsor Castle, though a shot of Windsor that had been used in Songs of Praise was edited in as a scene-setter to create the illusion of being in Berkshire.

The west wing, quadrangle, keep and vault all featured, as did Hiorne Tower and the shooting range on the Arundel Estate. Also used were Tarrant Street, High Street and London Road in Arundel, the elegant house Casa Del Mar in Goring, which was made up to look even more like a South American villa, and the 15th century St Mary’s House in Bramber, for scenes set in the 1600s.

Filming for Silver Nemesis took place locally between June 26 and July 2, 1988, with the story being shown between November 23 and December 7 that same year.

Arundel Castle also doubled as Windsor Castle in The Madness Of King George and The Young Victoria.

In Don't Forget The Driver, creator Tim Crouch chose his home town of Bognor Regis for the setting of his first TV series. It follows Peter Green, a coach driver played by Toby Jones, as he navigates life in the seaside town after finding a stowaway on his coach.

In a BBC blog from April 2019, he explains: "I’m a Bognor boy myself, and creating a series in the town has been a great experience. We’re always told we should write what we know.

"For me, drama needs to be set in a specific place for people to be able to relate to it. There are few places I know better than Bognor. To give you an idea, Joy (Peter’s mother – played by Marcia Warren) lives in a bungalow in Bognor. I went scouting the town to find where she should live, first thinking she would live in one of the estates before deciding she’d live by the sea.

"That’s when I went to Dark Lane, a beach from my childhood, and found the perfect bungalow nearby. Fortunately, the location crew were able to find the owner of the house and they were happy to move out for a few days while we filmed."

Littlehampton film-maker Andrew Elias gave a talk about his supernatural drama, The Numbers. He wrote, produced and directed the film in Littlehampton on a small budget.

Other short films he has produced in Littlehampton include Celebration, filmed in his flat, and Life’s a Bench, which won first prize in the MobileMovieMaking 2016 Memorable Places contest. His winning entry called Life’s a Bench is set in Littlehampton.

Ellen Cheshire, freelance film researcher, writer and lecturer, looked at films featuring the Sussex coastline from Shoreham to Bognor Regis, the South Downs and Arundel.

From the earliest days of moving pictures to the latest Hollywood blockbusters, locations in the area have been seen in cinema, either as themselves or doubling for other settings.

Nicholas Prosser, a retired television producer and director from Bognor Regis, shared highlights from his career, including Brookside, Emmerdale, EastEnders, Eldorado and The House Of Eliott.

He was part of British television history during Channel 4's opening transmission day on November 2, 1982, when he was the producer for the first episode of Brookside.

As well as offering advice about working in television, Nick gave behind-the-scenes anecdotes, including about the time EastEnders was filmed in Bognor Regis.

Christian Skelton, chairman of the Selsey Pavilion Trust, talked about the history and restoration of Selsey Pavilion, a rare and largely original example of a pre-war cine-performance venue.

He also shared details of his recent appearance on BBC One's The Repair Shop, featuring a Westar 35mm cinema projector gifted to the trust by Allen Taylor, a film enthusiast from Bognor Regis.

The projector had been in storage for years and it needed rewiring. Luckily, Mark Stuckey was keen to take on the project and Christian was invited to The Repair Shop at The Weald & Downland Living Museum.

A vintage electronics specialist with a particular interest in 35mm projectors, Mark said on the programme it was probably the best thing he had worked on in The Repair Shop.

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