Filmed in Yorkshire: Is the county becoming the Hollywood of the UK?
More evidence of the bucolic and economic charms of pastoral England……This story does demonstrate the value, notwithstanding all of us are in the gutter – of looking at the stars in terms of engaging in the public sector with the arts. The article tells us:
You might think that Drew Barrymore would be more at home in the Hollywood Hills than on the Yorkshire Moors. Yet here she is, standing on the famous Cow and Calf Rocks outside the market town of Ilkley, rain lashing down from the sort of apocalyptic sky that God’s own county does so well.
Barrymore and co-star Toni Collette are in a pivotal scene in their new movie Miss You Already, which went on general release last week. It’s a heartbreaking yet uplifting story of friendship, love and loss – and thanks to a vital plot point in which Barrymore and Collette take a drunken taxi ride north to deliver some home truths to each other amid the startling West Yorkshire landscape and a flock of sheep, Miss You Already is being chalked up as another success for the White Rose county’s bid to become nothing less than the Hollywood of the UK.
Titter ye not. It’s true and it’s thanks to various factors, chief among them the double whammy of an aggressively proactive investment body in the shape of Screen Yorkshire and the designation of one of the region’s biggest conurbations, Bradford, as the first Unesco City of Film in 2009. (It beat Los Angeles, Venice and Cannes to the honour.)