Cleveleys – a new hope

In May 2021 a small town on the North West coast of England became the focal point of Star Wars fans around the world.

Cleveleys – a seaside town just north of Blackpool, Lancashire was chosen as a location for the Disney+ Star Wars show ‘Andor’. This is the prequel TV show to the 2016 film ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ which itself was a prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy.

Anyone from the North West of England who spent their childhood holidays in the area just went ‘Cleveleys? They’re filming Star Wars in Cleveleys?!’ and then promptly headed up the M55 to go see for themselves. https://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/star-wars-andor-in-cleveleys-a-week-in-pictures-3232224

I was at work when the set up began so I followed it closely on Twitter and YouTube with growing excitement. I watched remotely as the sets were built, location dressed and the road closures put in place. There’s a full report online about the filming here https://www.visitcleveleys.co.uk/about/seafront/star-wars-filming-in-cleveleys/  and plenty of great YouTube videos by Visit Fylde Coast who undoubtedly had a huge rise in subscribers during filming.

When I finally had the day off to go and visit – it was on the most British of Bank Holidays – very, very wet, and very, very windy. It didn’t put my husband and I off making the trip, but it did however stop any filming going ahead. On a sunny day the area is beautiful, the day we went it was bracing. The palm trees they’d brought in were laid on their sides to protect them and the fluorescent clad security staff looked forlorn.

Why Cleveleys? The sea defences and promenade which were completed in 2010 are quite attractive, with clean concrete lines and interesting street furniture and buildings that could be dressed easily to look suitably ‘Star Wars’.

From what I’ve gathered someone on the location team had worked on the 2016 film ‘Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children’ which used nearby  Blackpool as a location, so the area was known to location scouts. It was great to see photos and footage of the filming when it was finally dry and calm enough. There was quite a buzz generated about the town.

Even though filming wasn’t going on when we visited, I was still pleased to get a few pictures of the café done up with props and alien writing around the edge of the roof. There were several street market stalls which you could see were decorated and full of interesting bits and pieces. It appears that the location is being used as some kind of holiday resort in the episode.

After filming finished at Cleveleys they reportedly moved on to Winspit Quarry, Dorset which I wrote about recently here https://fromscenetoseen.wordpress.com/2021/10/31/return-to-winspit-quarry/

Below are a few pictures of a later visit we made to Cleveleys a few months later. Just to prove that on a good day it can be the most beautiful place on a summer evening. We got to check out the area that had been used in filming we couldn’t access back in May – scenes were filmed with sunbathing extras dotted around the concrete blocks looking like they were having a nice time by the sea.

I’m looking forward to the show finally airing later this year and being able to return for another day out to whatever planet Cleveleys turns out to be on 😊