I put a few items up in 2008 relating to the time when the BBC filmed the Alan Bennett play "An Englishman Abroad" in the early 80's, with Dundee being transformed into Moscow.
Well I have a really good bundle of photos which were taken behind the scenes when all this was taking place.
So, in the 2 pictures above, we have shoe shop Peter Lord, on the Murraygate/Commercial Street corner, being modified into it's Russian equivalent.
Across the road on the other corner was John Menzies, who also got the Moscow name change treatment.
It was actually forecast for snow around the time of filming but only a tiny flurry dropped, not nearly enough for what the director, John Schlesinger, had in mind. So the decision was made at 4am to use salt instead. 14 council workers were brought down to the city centre to spread 80 tons of the stuff around town in order that filming could commence at 8:30am pronto.
I was there. They did a really convincing job.
Below is the part of the film where you see the Commercial Street scene.
The actress is trying to find someone who could give her directions to an address she had been given. She then ends up searching around Exchange Street.
