MGM Studio: Harry Potter

The wonderful old decrepit bridge at Hogwarts was a real buzz to walk across, thinking of the actors and their thrilling adventures.

Prosthetics by the hundreds, of weird creatures and others (such as Hagrid), were demonstrated as staff painted and added hair, etc.  Warwick Davis (Professor Filius Fitwick), in his distinctive and hilarious manner, demonstrated on a massive screen how the animatronics works to make them appear alive. This was my third most enjoyable aspect of "The Making of Harry Potter".

And this was my second most enjoyable aspect of "Harry" - a walk down Diagon Alley. The attention to detail by the creators of the sets has to be seen to be believed.

Joan and Andy are standing outside the Potter family's cottage, where Harry was born, and where his mother and father were murdered. This building was inspired by a 14th century Grade 1 listed cottage in Lavenham, Suffolk.

This is part of Diagon Alley, and the set was also used for Hogsmeade village scenes.

The attention to detail of all the buildings, and every little element of them, both outside and inside, keeps you looking and looking and looking - the interest is all-consuming.

This is the architectural drawing of shopfronts in Diagon Alley, from which the streetscape was created. The artists who imagined, drew, made and brought to reality this street are highly talented and committed to making sure that every little aspect was convincing and real - it works!

This model occupies a whole, huge room, with a ramp going all the way around the top and down to the lower level. There are touch screens every few metres to allow viewers to home in on different aspects, and particularly to view the entire building process as it was created.

This was the last, and the very best (for me), of all that we saw today at "The Making of Harry Potter".  Anyone who comes to London would have a great experience by going to see it. It doesn't matter whether you are interested in Harry Potter or not, it is the creativity, the digital film-making techniques, the artistry, the electronic wizardry, that I found to be the most exciting and breath-taking aspects of the whole presentation. The staff who made the masks for goblins and other strange creatures, the hippogriff 'Buckbeak', the phoenix, etc., and devised the body that made Robbie Coltrane into the half-giant Hagrid performed miracles, really. Most impressive, indeed!

Jack The Ripper Tour, Whitechapel

Just as we arrived to start our Jack the Ripper tour at 7.30pm on Sunday night, near Aldgate East station, down came the rain. It had been sunny when we left Pimlico, so did we have brollies? No. Well, it only lasted half an hour, and then cleared up, having created an appropriate atmosphere for a Jack the Ripper tour.

Our tour leader was actually named Jack! (Well, John, really). He had a good loud voice, a great sense of humour, and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Jack the Ripper mystery. Listening intently are Andy and Joan, carrying a plastic bag of books on the subject that we had just bought at a nearby shop.

Here's The Bell pub, that figured in the Ripper story. We walked from point to point, gathering around to hear Jack tell us anecdotes relating to the overall saga, along with his own views about possible culprits.

As we stood in front of the tall iron gates of Christ Church, Whitechapel, suddenly another character from 1888 joined us, a senior police officer (dressed appropriately), who engaged Jack in a conversation about a letter that Jack the Ripper had sent to the police department. Very nicely done.

Despite this part of London (Spitalfields, Whitechapel, all that area behind Liverpool Street station) having new glass and metal tall new office blocks built on much of it, there is an amazing amount that is just as it would have been back in 1888 when most of the inhabitants were impoverished, and social conditions were very poor and overcrowded into slums.

Jack used an optical projection device to show pictures of what the streetscape was like in the past as we sheltered beneath a modern building, as he told of the gruesome murder that occurred there in September 1888. We are in St James' Passage near Mitre Square in this image, close by the sites of murders committed by Jack the Ripper.

Andy can be seen following the walking tour along Mitre Street, a cobbled laneway, with the modern landmark, the 'Gherkin' at 30 St Mary Axe (Aldgate) towering above. Shortly after, we headed for home to read our books we'd bought: "Jack the Ripper, the Whitechapel Murderer", by Terry Lynch, and "Jack the Ripper - Catch me when you can".