There are some places in London you walk past thinking that ‘nobody actually lives there - it’s just too good to be true’. I ended up in one these houses early one autumn morning. It was as central as can be in London without actually being in the middle of Oxford Circus. The house was grand and facing a small park, in a quiet cul-de-sac, not far from Regents Park. The place was just so perfect looking and perfectly placed that if anyone actually lived there, they would surely have to own a few banks and several of countries with major oil funds at the very least.
I found myself knocking on the door at, asking not for a hedge fund manager or a British Lord, but for the comedian, writer and actor Griff Rhys Jones. Griff, (and not the expected penguin outfitted butler,) opened the door. The entrance hall was bigger than my whole house. It looked big on the outside, but when you got in you saw that it just got bigger and bigger - like a scene in ‘Charlie and the chocolate factory’. It was like walking into the wardrobe in Narnia, except there was no Lion there to greet me. Large open hall, high ceilings, great art work plastered on all walls, the list goes on. It’s the kind of place you wish you could just have free roam of the space and a lot of time to do whatever you wanted. As often is the case though, we had to restrict ourselves to one environmental setup and one with a backdrop, and there was of course a time limit to stick to. “We’re selling and moving house” Griff said half way through the shoot. Just for a second, I imagined myself in a parallel world with a few suitcases full of £50 notes, cigar in mouth, wearing a three piece suit and Brogue shoes - ready to talk business. However, I soon realised why I was there, my bags weren’t filled with money but with camera equipment - and I continued to set up the red backdrop and lights - preparing for the shoot.
