Imagine if Gone Girlmet Grand Designs. That’s essentially what you’re dealing with in the new BBC thriller The Girl Before: Clean lines, stone architecture and a floating staircase with a side of unexplained deaths and emotional manipulation.
Adapted from JP Delaney’s 2016 novel of the same name, the plot follows a recently bereaved lawyer Jane (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who moves into a stunning (but creepy) minimalist mansion three years after Emma (Jessica Plummer) and her over-bearing soon-to-be ex-boyfriend Simon (Ben Hardy) rented the space.
To move into the house, each of the inhabitants pass an interview with the architect Edward Monkford (David Oyelowo) and agree to abide by his bizarre way of life. This includes no children, pets, rugs, books, coasters, ornaments, plants, or general mess. Essentially, a hoarder’s worst nightmare.
Emma and Jane, who look eerily similar, both embark on casual romances with Edward one after the other. As the relationships develop, the house becomes a literal extension of the architect’s intrusive personality as it stops the women showering and tells them when to go to bed.
What’s so terrifying yet captivating about the house is it represents a loss of control. Like Edward, it’s beautiful yet dangerous—a combination that can be hard to understand mid-romance and even harder to leave.
Oyelowo told reporters of Edward’s parallels with the building: ‘When I first walked onto the set I had so much more of a sense of my character. Often, it’s the costume or the dialogue that really informs you as an actor, but it was this house for me.’
The house is an active participant in the plot. It causes deaths, it causes break ups, Simon even claims before he’s evicted: ‘This house hates me.’
Although we’re used to being haunted in old manor homes with cobwebs and creaky floorboards, One Folgate Street proves modern living can be just as sinister. ‘That is a very interesting place to set a psychological thriller,’ The Girl Before creator Delaney told Dezeen in 2017.
‘I thought it was interesting to take that gothic horror-house tradition that is so overworked and flip it on its head,’ he explained. ‘It’s not dark and gnarly and cluttered but it’s actually the reverse of that: blank and austere and beautiful but incredibly demanding of the occupant.’
And viewers haven’t been able to get enough of the thriller’s bone-chilling location. ‘I will basically watch anything for Gugu Mbatha-Raw but The Girl Before is also very much fulfilling all my creepy, futuristic haunted house desires,’ wrote one fan on Twitter. ‘Does this house actually exist?!’ another questioned.
The answer is, unfortunately, no. In the novel the house is based in Cricklewood, the TV show moved it to Hampstead and, while Folgate Street is an actual place in Shoreditch, it was actually filmed on a purpose-built set in Bristol.
‘You really do feel there is a wow factor when you walk onto the set, Gugu told reporters after visiting. ‘With minimalism you are buying into the architect’s vision and with this house, it’s Edward’s brain. You are living inside his head and you are living the way he wants you to live, and that’s the extra dimension the premise gives you.’
For those of us that are already scared of our Alexa, this series is going to be a lot to handle.
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