I’m watching a TV show. It’s what The Guardian would call a dystopian drama, on Netflix. There’s astronauts and androids. A spaceship and time travel. 1960s USA and sometime in the future. Possibly. About three quarters of the way through the story moves to New England on the east coast of the USA, and a seaside village.
“Doesn’t that look like Rye?”
“Isn’t that the Mermaid Street Café? Where’s the phone box gone? I’m sure that’s The Strand and the pot shop at the bottom of The Mint.”
"That's definitely Rye."
Ten seconds of Googling later, and yes “Beyond The Sea”, part of the Black Mirror series on Netflix, was partly made in Rye. I vaguely remember some filming in town last year, but luckily my Rye News colleague Juliet Duff saw the whole thing as it happened and took some pictures. The scene in Rye features Breaking Bad actor Aaron Paul and Kate Mara, who starred as a reporter in House of Cards.
No spoilers, apart from they're shopping. The red phone box is disguised as an oyster shack. The Mint becomes Union Street. The Confit Pot is Mitchell's Hardware. You’ll have to watch it. Rye looks great. Josh Hartnett is in it too. It’s probably not one for the kids. It gets a bit gory.
It may be a multi-million dollar US drama, but the Black Mirror series was created by Brit Charlie Brooker. He told NME “Beyond The Sea” was inspired by lockdown. “It’s the ultimate working from home episode, the ultimate Zoom call. It was an idea that had been rattling around for a while in my head… inspired by the pandemic.”
There's another film featuring the local area just out too. "Soundproof" is an indie film with scenes shot around Lydd, Dungeness and Jurys Gap.
