Hot Fuzz is a 2007 British action-comedy directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg, who stars as Nicholas Angel, an exceptionally efficient London police officer whose talents are so embarrassing to his superiors that he is reassigned to the seemingly quiet village of Sandford. What begins as a fish-out-of-water comedy gradually turns into a full-scale murder mystery and then an all-out action film, as the story gleefully blends buddy-cop clichés, slasher elements and very English small-town satire. With Nick Frost as Angel’s film-obsessed partner Danny Butterman, the film became one of the defining British cult comedies of the 2000s and the second entry in Wright, Pegg and Frost’s so-called Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy.
Although Sandford is fictional, the film was shot primarily in Wells, Somerset, Edgar Wright’s home city, and the place is used so thoroughly that it becomes one of the film’s main characters. The Market Place provided the setting for the climactic shoot-out, The Crown in Wells was used for the exterior of the Crown pub, The Swan Hotel appears prominently in the town centre, and the Bishop’s Palace was used for key NWA scenes. Other Wells locations included High Street, St Cuthbert’s area and surrounding roads, while a few additional scenes were filmed elsewhere, including the interior of the pub at the Royal Standard of England near Beaconsfield, the police-training material at Hendon, and some studio work outside Somerset. Even so, the film’s identity is rooted above all in Wells, whose cathedral city streets, squares, old buildings and compact West Country layout give Sandford its deceptively picturesque look.
The Manor Elstree
The Manor Elstree has appeared in productions including School for Scoundrels, The Devil Rides Out, A Clockwork Orange, Stardust, Hot Fuzz, and many more.
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