Bristol Film Office is a Bristol City Council service dedicated to all productions planning to film in the city. We can assist at all stages of production, from initial location and crewing advice to recces and logistical support.
 
New Sky Drama A Discovery of Witches begins 14th September featuring Bristol locations

New Sky Drama A Discovery of Witches begins 14th September featuring Bristol locations

Highly anticipated new drama A Discovery of Witches will begin airing on Sky One and Now TV on Friday, after being partly filmed in Bristol with Film Office Support last year.

Starring Matthew Goode (Downton Abbey, The Crown) and Teresa Palmer (Hacksaw Ridge), the Sky original production is a modern-day love story adapted from Deborah Harkness’s bestselling All Souls trilogy, set in a world where witches, vampires and daemons secretly live and work alongside humans, hidden in plain sight.

Teresa Palmer & Owen Teale outside The Harbour Hotel, Corn Street, Bristol

Set against the backdrop of Oxford academic life, much of the drama was filmed in Oxford, South Wales and Venice, but producers also made the most of Bristol’s historic quarter to recreate street scenes of the University city.

The Sky original production stars Teresa Palmer as academic and historian Diana Bishop, a witch denying her magical heritage. Until the discovery of an ancient manuscript in Oxford’s Bodleian Library throws her into the heart of a dangerous mystery – and into the path of enigmatic geneticist and vampire Matthew Clairmont, (Matthew Goode), who hides a dark family secret.

Bristol Film Office supported filming in October last year for a large-scale unit of more than 70 crew that shot at a number of locations including interiors at The Harbour Hotel on Corn Street and Highbury Vaults on St Michael’s Hill, with exterior cafe scenes also filmed outside The Rummer on All Saints Lane. In one stand out scene, lead character Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer), is seen cycling through Bristol streets on Deanery Road near College Green and Bristol Cathedral, which double for Oxford.

(L) Teresa Palmer is cycles along Deanery Road, Bristol; (R) the finished scene (image courtesy Sky One)

This is an incredibly exciting new production and we were very pleased that we were able to assist its locations team in finding the historic streets of central Bristol that were such a good fit for recreating the beautiful setting of Oxford. For high end dramas shooting in cities like Cardiff and Oxford, producers can be confident that the wealth of locations here in Bristol will be both convenient, located along the M4 corridor, as well as visually suitable to complement the rest of their shoot.

Natalie Moore, Bristol Film Office
(L) Filming outside The Harbour Hotel; (R) Low loader driving scenes on Deanery Road

Other cast includes Alex Kingston, Sarah Bishop, Owen Teale and Louise Brealey. Made by Bad Wolf Productions, A Discovery of Witches has been adapted for screen by writer Kate Brooke (Mr Selfridge), who is also an executive producer. The co-founders of Bad Wolf, Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner, and Lachlan MacKinnon are executive producers along with Deborah Harkness. Juan Carlos Medina (Painless) is the director.

A Discovery of Witches begins on Friday 14th September at 9pm on Sky 1 and Now TV.