CULTURE / RECEPTION / CONSUMPTIONS THE ENGLISH VILLAGE IN EMMA: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF HERITAGE DRAMAS, LOCATION FILMING AND HOST COMMUNITIES LAVINIA BRYDON AND LISA STEAD Name Dr. Lavinia Brydon and economic and cultural impact of location filming for Academic centre University of Kent heritage dramas within rural areas. Second, it reflects upon E-mail address
[email protected] how a community experiences and responds to its status as the host of such a series, considering the impact this has Name Dr. Lisa Stead upon questions of identity and heritage. The article draws Academic centre University of East Anglia upon original empirical research, oral history interviews E-mail address
[email protected] and community archive building conducted within the Chilham community and with Kent Film Office. It explores KEYWORDS the memories and experiences of the local population English village; heritage series; location filming; host commu- involved in the television location filming process, as nity; film-induced tourism. both spectators and participants. We thus consider the significance of location from the point of view of those ABSTRACT who solicit, resist, profit from, and are caused problems by This article considers location filming for heritage the temporary transformation of their local space into a dramas in rural England, focusing on the experiences television drama shooting space, forging new connections of the communities that “host” television crews during between production practices, location shooting and production. The article specifically examines the filming heritage series and national television/cinema. of the 2009 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, for which the historic Kent village, Chilham, doubled as the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS fictional Highbury.