A Decade of Skins: 10 of its Best Bristol Locations
Posted on: 31 Jan 2017To celebrate the 10th birthday of Skins, the teen-drama set in Bristol, we select the city's 10 most iconic locations in which the show filmed.
Last week saw the 10th birthday of Skins, the hard-hitting, coming-of-age, sex-drugs-and-double-maths drama which follows a set of teenagers through their days at college in Bristol. A lot has changed since it premiered in 2007; watching back through its first four series (the less said about the final two the better) reveals a simpler, less-cynical world in which kids communicated via their Motorola Razrs, dealers sported moustaches of near-Victorian magnificence or where one could, without repercussion, steal a family car and sink it a harbour. Or in which Posh Kenneth could exist.
This disparity between the Bristol now and the Bristol then is doubtless due to the maturing of its audience: many 14-year-olds who had marvelled when the gang casually dropped at a Crystal Castles gig and their first exposure to *whispers* D-R-U-G-S would now cringe in equal measure at the bit in the fifth series where Liv and Matty take MDMA and skip through Millennium Square.
That said, the show did have its moments in amongst the giddy highs and inevitable lows charted on its navigation through the late teens, and a number of these are set against reasonably spectacular Bristol back-drops. Here we select 10 of the city’s most iconic filming locations, listed below in the chronological order in which they appear.
1. Vauxhall Bridge - Series 1 Episode 1
In the very first episode of Skins, Tony crosses Vauxhall Bridge (which links Spike Island to his resident Bedminster) en route to college, whilst negotiating a series of phone calls regarding that evening’s entertainment.
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2. College Green
The conclusion of Tony’s frantic telecommunication coincides perfectly with his arrival at College Green, a constant meeting point for each of the generations of Skins gangs. It is here that Cook, Freddie and JJ assemble in the first episode of series two - sadly the bacon butty van on its corner that serves lager at 8am does not exist in real life.
3. Brandon Hill Nature Park - Series 1
Did anything (onscreen or in reality) ever get better than the closing shot of series one? After a series of dramatic obstacles to their relationship (and an impromptu cover version of Cat Stevens’ ‘Wild World’), Sid and Cassie meet on Brandon Hill. The park plays the setting to many of the moments pivotal to their rocky romance - most obviously, her overdose whilst dancing on one of its benches.
It is on this same bench - now known locally as ‘Cassie’s bench’ - that the pair sit at the very end of the first series, silhouetted against the blue night sky and the glowing warmth of Bristol where, for a fleeting moment, it looked as though everything would be alright.
4. Rocotillos - Series 1 Episode 8
Another location for a key moment in the ‘Sassie’ (or ‘Cid’?) trajectory is provided by Rocotillos, as the pair share their first kiss in an American-style diner. Off-screen, it is a restaurant on the Triangle which specialises in banging milkshakes and pancakes - a site of pilgrimage for any Skins buff.
5. Baldwin Street - Series 2 Episode 10
In one of the more farfetched plotlines in a series which also features a will-they-won’t-they? relationship unfold between a teacher and pupil on a school trip to a Russian glue farm, Tony and Sid, having been banned from his funeral, steal the corpse of their friend Chris so as to give him ‘a proper goodbye’.
To do this, they strap the coffin to the top of a red classic Mini Cooper and set off, pursued by a hearse, on a geographically-imrobable high-speed chase around Bristol, somehow getting from Charlotte St to Baldwin St in the space of twenty seconds.
Attributing the above to artistic license, however, the scene is a lot of fun (especially when set to Britney Spear’s ‘Oops I Did It Again’ and ‘Sound Of The Underground’ by Girls Aloud) and reaches it conclusion as Tony sends the Mini careering down three flights of stairs.
6. Park Street - Series 3 Episode 1
Another ridiculous stunt comes in the very first shot of series three. Anybody who chooses to struggle up Park St must be a bit nuts; anybody who chooses to surf down it on a skateboard would be certifiably insane. Step forward Freddie McClair, who is not only competent enough to jump over a building site and mug off a policeman during his daring descent, but also to somehow teleport to its start-point from the Lloyds Amphitheatre in which the scene begins. Audacious.
7. Thekla - Series 3 Episode 2
The majority of series three’s second episode in spent below the decks of everyone’s favourite nautical nightclub HMS Thekla, the venue for an engagement party to which the gang gain entry upon Cook’s brandishing an unidentified bag of drugs.
Ever the show-off, Cook will later go on to deliver a spontaneous rendition of ‘I Write The Songs’ to woo the betrothed daughter of the party’s host Gareth Keenan, who has turned to organised crime after the closure of Wernham Hogg.
Perhaps predictably, this doesn’t go down too well with the track-suited gangster, who bottles the would-be Barry Manilow and initiates a bar brawl.
8. Entrance to the Redcliffe Caves - Series 3 Episode 3
Another brush with the gangster (played by Mackenzie Crook) comes in the following episode, during a rave taking place in the Redcliffe Caves. The entrance to this subterranean venue lies (apparently) beneath a man-hole cover just across the water from Thekla in a car park on Redcliffe Parade.
9. SWX - Series 4 Episode 1
Series four gets underway with a single-shot traipse through SWX (then Syndicate), from the point of view of Sophia who, at its close, leaps to her death from a balcony whilst high. This opening scene neatly reintroduces the majority of the main cast (from Cook shagging in the stairway to Panda and JJ hopping around front right) while also introducing one of the series’ overarching storylines - all set to music that a Syndicate DJ wouldn’t dream of playing in his scariest acid-fuelled nightmares.
10. Trenchard Street Car Park - Series 5 Episode 1
Everyone knows that the third generation of Skins was rubbish. The ill-fated fifth series peaked before it had even begun with this opening credits shot of its core group overlooking central Bristol’s vista from the Trenchard St Car Park.
Images courtesy of Channel 4.
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An ardent Geordie minus the accent, Sam seemingly strove to get as far away from the Toon as possible, as soon as university beckoned. Three undergraduate years at UoB were more than ample time for Bristol (as it inevitably does) to get under his skin, and so here he remains: reporting, as Assistant Editor, on the cultural happenings which so infatuated him with the city. Catch him at sam@365bristol.com.
