In the Footsteps of the Stars Trail Cont...
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Spitalfields & Brick Lane
East London can symbolise extreme sophistication with places like Canary Wharf and at the same time it can signify extreme indigence and lawlessness. It is the latter side we uncover in this section.
Start your tour at Liverpool Street Station (1). At the foot of the stairs from the Liverpool Street entrance is where Tom Cruise meets up with Jon Voight in Mission: Impossible, although where the telephones once stood is a row of cash machines. Attached to the station is The Great Eastern Hotel (2). Bill Murray finds himself perched on a ledge in The Man Who Knew Too Little. Across 
the street is Liverpool Street Underground Station (3), above which is the safe house where Tom Cruise holes up, with Jean reno in Mission: Impossible.
Turn left onto Bishopsgate and then right into Brushfield , home of popular Spitalfields Market (in picture above) (4). The 2003 film, Nicholas Nickleby, made particular use of Spitalfields Market. Based on the novel by Charles Dickens, it is the story of a boy's struggle to survive and find happiness in a hostile and unfeeling world.
Nearby
Christ Church (in picture) (5) features in 28 Days Later - it is where Jim discovers
a sea of dead (and not-so-dead) bodies before being attacked by the infected priest. A recreation of the church looms over the Victorian East End seen in the Hughes brothers', From Hell with Johnny Depp on the trail of Jack the Ripper, alongside a recreation of the Ten Bells pub (6) (on the corner of Fournier Street), where the prostitutes congregate.
The dilapidated look of Fournier Street 
belies its position as the current centre of Britart, being longtime home to Gilbert & George and, more recently to Tracey Emin. 3 Fournier Street (in picture) (7) was transformed into the hairdressing salon where Dil (Jaye Davidson) works in Neil Jordan's The Crying Game .
Make your way to the end of Fournier Street into Brick Lane, once the East End's Jewish ghetto, now the heart of the Bengali community. City Spice at 183 Brick Lane (8) was once the famed Clifton Restaurant, where Irish terrorist Miranda Richardson spies on Jaye Richardson and Stephen Rea in The Crying Game.
Turn right into Pedley Street and continue along the narrow road 
to the dark turning under the railway line. Eddie and Bacon leg it down the rather intimidating steps (in picture) (9) to Shoreditch's railway bridge at the end of the tunnel on Pedley Street after the law descends on their street stall scam at the opening of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
Cross over the bridge onto Cheshire Street; to the right is Repton Boys Club (10), where the boxing-mad Krays once worked and also where the site of the catastrophic three-card-brag game in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels takes place. 
On the left is Blackman's Shoes, 42-44 Cheshire Street (in picture) (11), used as the exterior of 'Hatchet' Harry's office - 'Harry Lonsdale: Porn King' in the same film.
At 97-99 Sclater Street (12) where mugger Eddie lives in casual squalor with his vague dad Barney in Born Romantic.
Return to Liverpool Street Station.
Holiday Ideas
Spend a weekend in the city fringe, pottering around the traditional East End Markets, such as Spitalfields, Petticoat Lane or Columbia Road Flower Market, and exploring one of the many free museums: the Whitechapel Gallery, Dennis Severs' House, The Woman's Library, the Geffrye Museum and Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood.
In the evening sample a tasty curry on nearby Brick Lane for a real flavour of London life and hang out at the trendy bars and pubs in the area.
To download Spitalfields and Brick Lane Film Map (pdf format), click here and for more information about the many places of interest in the Spitalfields and Brick Lane area, please request a 'Time Out Guide to Spitalfields, Brick Lane and Columbia Road' at 'Contact Us'.
