Misconception shattered

You know that big scene in Oliver! where he wakes up in a beautiful house, on a beautiful day, with a beautiful flower seller outside singing: 'Who will buy my sweet red roses, two blooms for a penny?'?

I first saw the movie when I was about 10 years old and to this day have always wanted to find that Crescent of houses. A few in London come close to it. I thought Park Crescent at the Regents Park end of Portland Place.

And today I find out it was a film set at Shepperton studios! Apparently the whole movie was shot on sets at Shepperton. This contrasts with a boat trip we took up the Thames in 1968 or 1969 when on a day trip to London with my school - Barnsbury Junior School, Woking - the guy on the loudspeaker pointed out a wharf just past Tower Bridge where 'some scenes of Oliver! were filmed last year'.

IMDB says it was filmed exclusively at the studios. But what about 'Dunstable' in the snow? surely too big a set for a British movie (OK - in the US they can rebuild Manhattan in the 1890s)?

Can anybody who knows somebody involved in the making of Oliver! let me know? To think, I bumped into Sir Harry Secombe about 12 years ago in a remote Surrey pub and I didn't ask him. Given that he was the beadle singing 'Boy for Sale' as they trudged through the snow in Dunstable, he'd have known!

The only movie set I've walked on was Superman II part of which was filmed on Chobham Common. the bit where the baddies arrive on earth in small town America and trash the place - that's actually a couple of miles outside Woking. There were clever perspective tricks to make the place look bigger but so much work went into the build. I took some friends back on our bikes a day or two later and we were horrified to discover the Saloon had been burnt to the ground. Obviously the work of vandals and probably setting back the filming by several weeks. Actually it was the evil work of Terence Stamp!

I've just remembered some other filming - I was in the auditorium of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden when they filmed scenes for the Fifth Element (where the storm trooper type aliens burst in all guns blazing). However I was not an extra - as a commissionaire I was getting some overtime by making sure nobody accidentally wandered in to the upper tiers during filming. Have you seen how much food they dish up on these sets?

The other filming was 'Wimbledon' for the scenes set in Brighton. They spent ages making the streets wet because it was actually a really hot, dry June, probably 2002 or 2003. I might even be in it. There's someone on the beach with a small dog in the background when Peter Colt drives along Madeira Drive. If so, it last about a second and is entirely indistinguishable. It could be anybody, but I did walk the dog when they were filming. I'm not credited as an extra though! There were plenty of them around.