Written by on Nov 18, 2014. Posted in Production News

Benedict Cumberbatch films The Imitation Game in recreated wartime London

Benedict Cumberbatch filmed The Imitation Game partly on location in central London, recreating the capital’s wartime appearance. Cumberbatch plays maths genius Alan Turing, who cracked the Nazi Enigma code and helped significantly shorten World War Two.

Several key scenes were filmed in central London, which the production team dressed to recreate the wartime city as it looked when under nightly German bombardment.

“Exterior painting of buildings took place for two weeks prior to the shoot,” Supervising Location Manager David Broder told Film London: “On the prep day on the Saturday, 80 tons of rubble were dropped onto Chancery Lane and thousands of sandbags covered the Law Society buildings and others. The shoot was a great success with two main units working through the day on the Sunday.

“On wrap on Sunday evening, the clear-up began to get the street back to working order by 6am the next day. This was achieved with the art and location department, props, construction and our road cleaning gang working through the night.”

The Imitation Game comes only weeks after the release of Brad Pitt’s World War Two tank drama Fury, which doubled Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire for Germany in the final days of the conflict.

A plethora of productions set in the First World War have been filmed in the UK in recent months to mark the centenary. The war has also found its way into commercials. Sainsbury’s has focussed on the 1914 Christmas truce between British and German troops for its latest campaign, recreating the war on location in Suffolk.