"The Good Liar" - Helen Mirren film, with Crossrail train at Slough in 2009!

[whole diary]

[Marlburian]

The 2019 film "The Good Liar" was screened on BBC2 on Tuesday (and no doubt is available on iPlayer). It's set in 2009 and includes a scene filmed at Slough Station. IMDB tells us that "While Roy and Betty are at Slough railway station, a train in a partly purple livery speeds through. This is one of the new Elizabeth line trains, which are still (late 2019) running experimentally and did not exist in 2009, when the film was set. Roy also leaves on a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) branded train, in 2009 this would have had a First Great Western livery, as the GWR brand didn't return until 2015."

There's also a murder scene on the Underground and IMDB says that "The Charing Cross station used in this movie is the closed Charing Cross station on the Jubilee Line. It was used in Skyfall (2012)."

There's also a "Routemaster" moment or two with post-2009 buses.

I thought the film to be very good, with excellent acting by Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen, though the denouement was very contrived.

[Bmblbzzz]

Oh dear! News like this will destroy the pleasant community on this forum!! Half the forum will be writing outraged letters to the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) and cancelling their TV licences in protest at this egregious inaccuracy – while the other half will be organizing iPlayer sessions so they can "impress" their family and friends with their stunning rolling stock knowledge and spot the disused station!!!

[Marlburian]

Thus it was with the "Routemaster moments" that featured in the "You Say" reader comments in the Sunday Times TV listings for several years. TBH^▸ (to be honest) they became tedious, especially when some claims were shown to be fallacious. (Oh, the feeling of schadenfreude when we pedants are hoist with our own petards.)

[TonyK]

Oh dear! News like this will destroy the pleasant community on this forum!! Half the forum will be writing outraged letters to the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) and cancelling their TV licences in protest at this egregious inaccuracy – while the other half will be organizing iPlayer sessions so they can "impress" their family and friends with their stunning rolling stock knowledge and spot the disused station!!!

Column B for me, I think. It's available for the next 28 days. Years ago, I remember seeing a western (not great) where the two protagonists faced off in the desert, hands above guns. As one said "1867 isn't big enough for the two of us", the camera panned back. In the distance, an aeroplane was climbing.