Cosy season is almost here, and what better way to see it in than a new murder mystery? Richard Osman's bestselling book, The Thursday Murder Club, has been adapted for the big screen, and fans can't contain their excitement. The film will follow the same storyline as the book, which sees four amateur sleuths people solving a crime that occurs close to their home. As the whodunnit unravels, the unlikely trio find themselves caught up in the real life case.
'Thematically it’s interesting that we’ve got four elderly people who are living in a retirement community and who are fascinated by death and murder,' the film's director told Chris Colombus told Netflix's Tudum. 'They are facing their own demise, yet at the same time they are obsessed with studying cold cases. ... It’s comedic, but it’s also very emotional.'
The movie has a star-studded cast with Helen Mirren as Elizabeth, a retired spy, Pierce Brosnan as Ron, a retired union leader Ron, Ben Kingsley who plays retired psychiatrist Ibrahim and Celia Imrie as retired nurse Joyce. It also has some pretty amazing filming locations that sum up the cosy, murder mystery feel of the book. so without further ado, we've broken them down...
Englefield House
Anyone familiar with the book will know that lots of the action takes place at Coopers Chase Retirement Village. For this setting, Colombus chose Englefield House, a grand, privately owned home in Berkshire, England has been used as a filming location for lots of similar projects, including The Crown and The King’s Speech. The house even has a murderous history IRL, with reports stating it was once the residence of someone involved in a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I.
Speaking about the decision to film there, Columbus said he was looking for 'the Hogwarts version of the retirement community. In an interview with Town And Country House, production designer James Merrifield explained why the house was the perfect setting for the fictional retirement home. ‘When I first read the script, I immediately thought of Englefield,’ he told the outlet. 'The scale of the house is perfect, the architectural style, the geography, the placing of the graveyard and the church… I showed Chris [Columbus] various other ideas, but we kept coming back to Englefield.’
Aldbury
The Thursday Murder Club is set in the fictional village of Fairhaven, which Osman describes as being locate on the Sussex coastline, about '30 minutes from Tunbridge Wells’. Aldbury is the closest you can get to a quintessential countryside village - it features a duck pond, chocolate-box cottages and endless green fields. It's the reason Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason and _Midsomer Murder_s have both bene filmed there. Photos on X from July show the village being transformed into the set, with the BBC even reporting that the village had been improved with the money from the Netflix production crew.
Aldbury Parish Council has told the BBC that funds from the filming have gone towards improving the common, refurbishing a school playground and adding a duck house to the village pond.
Gaddesden Place
Englefield House wasn't the only grand place used to shoot some of movie's iconic scenes. Enter Gaddesden Place, an 18th Century House in Hertfordshire which is used as a private house and offices. The incredible property has rolling views of the Home Counties, and features a conservatory with an indoor swimming pool, a classic Georgian style drawing room, a library and a large entrance hall. It's no wonder it's often used for filming locations, with Holby City, The Current War and The Good Liar all filmed there.
For The Thursday Murder Club, we see Ron's aquarobics class take place here. We filmed there for a day,’ Merifield told Time Out. ‘We thought it would be hugely funny to have Pierce doing an exercise class with a rubber ring.’
Red Lion Pub in Buckinghamshire
Every British murder mystery has to have a pub at the heart of it. For The Thursday Murder Club, they chose The Red Lion in Little Missenden, a quintessential boozer in the countryside. The pubs interiors, which feature brass kettles and wooden beams, provided the perfect location for Ian and Bodgan’s meeting. In fact, this pub has a special place in Merifield's heart, considering it's his own local!
Alice Hall is the Staff Writer at Grazia UK. She was previously a Junior Features Writer for The Daily Telegraph. At Grazia, she writes news and features about pop culture, dating, health, politics and interiors.