Cambridge Circus, London
Cambridge Circus is the partly pedestrianised intersection where
The Circus is fronted by listed Georgian and Victorian buildings. Of these, the Palace Theatre has the widest façade; three bars and three fast food outlets occupy the ground floors of the others.
Side-street approaches
Earlham Street specialises in fashion; Moor Street in cafés, leading to the
Buildings
The
In fiction
In his espionage novels, author John le Carré placed the headquarters of the fictionalised British intelligence service based on MI6 in buildings on Shaftesbury Avenue and Cambridge Circus;[1][2] it is from this that Le Carré's nickname for the agency, "The Circus", derives. The BBC's Gordon Corera notes that the entrance described by Le Carré most closely resembles that of 90 Charing Cross Road, just north of Cambridge Circus.[3] The actual MI6 has never occupied premises in or near Cambridge Circus. [3][4]
The Circus hosted Marks & Co, booksellers, who operated from 84 Charing Cross Road, which featured in Helene Hanff's 1970 book 84, Charing Cross Road, which has subsequently been adapted into a stage play, a television play, and a 1987 movie starting Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, and Judi Dench. Hanff's book, as well as her other work The Duchess of Bloomsbury (1973), detail her several-decades-long correspondence by mail with Frank Doel, a bookseller at Marks & Co.
In the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire, the protagonist, Jamal, is asked to locate Cambridge Circus in the Indian version of the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. He answers the 5 million rupee question correctly, based on his experience working in an outsourced call centre.[5]
Film locations
Cambridge Circus has featured in:
- The League of Gentlemen (1960)
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy(1979)
- 84 Charing Cross Road (1987)
- Match Point (2005)
References
- ^ a b c Christopher Howse (1 May 2007). "Exactly where is the Circus?". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 10 May 2012.
- John Le Carré Call for the Dead
- ^ a b Gordon Corera (11 September 2011). "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: John Le Carre and reality". BBC News. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
- Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Archived from the originalon 4 July 2015. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
- ^ "Slumdog Millionaire". www.imsdb.com. 112. Archived from the original on 21 February 2009. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
External links
Media related to Cambridge Circus, London at Wikimedia Commons