Gainsborough Studios: Hackney’s Little Hollywood with Nigel Smith

Between 1920 and 1949, on the site of an old power station between the Regent’s Canal and Shoreditch Park, more than 170 films were made in what was then one of Britain’s most famous film studios. Now a block of flats this is where Alfred Hitchcock started his career and the plucky British film industry put up a fight against Hollywood.

Hitchcock’s legacy at Gainsborough Studios is commemorated with an enormous sculpture of the director’s head. But there’s much more to this story than the Master of Suspense. Stars including Ivor Novello, Gracie Fields, James Mason and Glynis Johns all made films here and the studio played a front-line role in the growth of the British film industry. Nigel Smith is a tour guide who specialises in the history of cinema and cinema-going. With anecdotes, archive images and video clips his talk will bring to life a brief period of Hollywood glamour in Hackney.