Elstree Calling

The 28-seater Preview Theatre at Elstree Studios. Photo: © Elstree Studios Ltd.

Mike Quinn worked at Elstree Studios as a puppeteer on several movies between 1980 and about 1988. I was delighted when he contacted me with his recollections of working at Elstree Studios:

Your website brought back many happy memories. For the longest time I coulnd't bring myself to visit the decimated studios until I finally took my wife there on a visit in the mid 2000s.

I was remembering the other day my very first Elstree 'shoot'. It was for The Great Muppet Caper and they had dressed up the front entrance of the now sadly demolished admin. block to become the exterior of The Dubonnet Club, when the Muppet's Happiness Hotel bus arrives.

I saw Stage 6 (dismantled at Elstree in 1991 and later rebuilt at Shepperton) when I was working at Shepperton, I think on Muppet's Treasure island. Of course, that was originally the stage built for George Lucas and that he used for the space ship hangers and Degobah. It was weird to be shopping for Shampoo in the Tescos which now stands on the Stage 6 site and thinking: this used to be a swamp! 

It might be nice if they could be a permanent street on the back lot at Elstree again. I remember walking around the Young Sherlock Holmes exterior set there all covered in fake snow during the summer of 1985. It was a great set! We were 'shooting' Labyrinth at Elstree at the time.

Another movie I watched them 'shoot' at Elstree was Never Say Never never Again, Sean Connery's last Bond. I never did see the final movie, but I recall that they dressed the covered walkway between the woodshop block and the Stages 1 - 4 block and made it into a tunnel for shots for a motorcycle sequence in the movie. 

My special thanks go to Mike Quinn for his kind words about my website and for his recollections of Elstree Studios.

For more information about Mike Quinn, please visit his official website: www.quinnzone.com

© Paul Burton

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