It’s great being a tourist in London. It’s even better if the tourist in you is also a film lover. Downton Abbey to Dr Who, Harry Potter to Game of Thrones, there’s a film tour for almost every iconic film or TV franchise that’s ever been shot in and around London. So when movie channel Sony PIX came up with an invite for t2 to take a tour of the London spots where many of the 23 Bond films have been shot, it was like M for Must-go. Here’s what we soaked in during the three-hour tour — no open-top bus, no Underground, no cab, but on foot — through London on a sunny June afternoon…

REFORM CLUB

Located at: South side of Pall Mall in central London

Film: Die Another Day (2002)

A grey building standing three storeys high, Reform Club seems just like one of the many architecturally impressive buildings that dot every London street corner. Functional since 1836, this gentlemen’s club was opened to women as late as 1981. Reform Club provided the setting for an important scene from Die Another Day — the iconic fencing sequence (in picture, below left) between Pierce Brosnan’s Bond and Gustav Graves (played by Toby Stephens) in which it was passed off as the fictional fencing club “Blades”. Shot in the main foyer and upper gallery of the club, the scene, also featuring Madonna, was a difficult one to film — and not just on screen. The story is that director Lee Tamahori and his crew — all dressed in casual wear — were stopped from entering the club which is stringent about its “only suit and tie” dress code. An irritated Tamahori had his revenge — by casting the club’s Rastafarian cleaner, the only one in the club who had turned up in casuals, in the fencing scene!

A few years later, Reform Club found its way into another Bond film. In Quantum of Solace (2008), it was converted into the “Foreign Secretary’s Office” (in picture above right) where M (Judi Dench) is summoned to explain Bond’s (Daniel Craig) actions in Bolivia.

PS: 007 legend has it that the character of M was actually inspired by former secret service MI5 chief Stella Rimington, an active member of Reform Club.

BUCKINGHAM PALACE

Film: Die Another Day

Known for its stringent security system, Buckingham Palace has never entertained any requests for shooting on its premises... or even in its vicinity. However, it made an exception for a Bond film when it allowed Die Another Day access to its grounds. That famous scene where Gustav Graves parachutes into the lawns of Buckingham Palace (below, left) was not shot on a dummy set, but on the palace grounds itself!

But the more delightful Bond-Buckingham connect was in 2012 when Daniel Craig reprised his role as Bond (above, right) to walk into the palace and escort Queen Elizabeth II to the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. For many, that six-minute sequence was the best bit of the inaugural celebrations.

THE NATIONAL GALLERY

Located at: Trafalgar Square

Film: Skyfall (2012)

Remember that standout sequence where Bond (Craig) first meets the inimitable genius Q (played by Ben Whishaw)? Well, that (picture far below) was filmed in the Sackler Room of The National Gallery. Bond sits on a black bench in the room — in reality, the room has maroon leather sofas — and stares at the painting in front — Joseph Mallord William Turner’s 1839 painting called The Fighting Temeraire (right). Q walks in to sit beside him and the sardonic exchange between the two goes...

Q: “I’ll hazard I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my pyjamas before my first cup of Earl Grey than you can do in a year in the field.”

Bond: “Oh, so why do you need me?”

Q: “Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled.”

Bond: “Or not pulled. It’s hard to know which in your pyjamas.”

The two also discuss The Fighting Temeraire — Q says: “It always makes me feel a bit melancholy. Grand old warship being ignominiously haunted away to scrap... the inevitability of time, don’t you think? What do you see?” Bond hardly bats an eyelid to quip: “A bloody big ship”. The subtext: The Fighting Temeraire’s lost glory is an analogy to Bond’s boss M who is well past her prime.

PS: No photography — still or motion — is allowed inside The National Gallery. But then, this is Bond....

CHARING CROSS STATION

Located at: Central London

Film: Skyfall

The film’s most edge-of-the-seat sequence was shot at the Charing Cross Station. Silva (Javier Bardem) escapes from the MI6 headquarters into the Underground. Director Sam Mendes and his crew took over Charing Cross Station — renamed Temple Station in the film — for many nights in end-2011, filming Silva’s daring escape. However, the scene’s biggest action set-piece —that of a train crashing through the floor and hurtling straight towards Daniel Craig — was recreated in a studio.

THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Located at: Whitehall Place

Film: Skyfall

The Department of Energy and Climate Change at Whitehall Place provided the setting for the final scene of Skyfall. After M’s death, Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) meets Bond (Craig) atop the terrace of The Department of Energy and Climate Change and hands over a box belonging to M. The final shot of the film — with Craig looking at the London skyline (below) as Big Ben looms into view — is shot on that very terrace.

RIVER THAMES

Film: The World Is Not Enough (1999)

The 14-minute pre-title sequence in The World Is Not Enough — with Brosnan as Bond — is a zip-zap-zoom chase scene almost entirely filmed on River Thames. Bond gets into a boat and zips out through the window of MI6 (a building made out to be MI6 since the secret service doesn’t allow any cameras on its premises) and plunges right into the Thames. In what is the longest pre-title sequence in a 007 film, Bond powers down the Thames, criss-crossing the familar landmarks of London Bridge and the Millennium Dome. The sequence apparently took seven weeks to shoot and its filming was broadcast live over the Internet via webcam set up at specific points over the Thames. With the audience reacting favourably to the broadcast, it was decided to make this scene the film’s pre-title sequence.

MALAYSIAN TOURIST OFFICE

Located at: Trafalgar Square

Film: The Living Daylights (1987)

In the film starring Timothy Dalton as Bond, the Malaysian Tourist Office (left)at Trafalgar Square is inexplicably passed off as the office of Universal Exports, the cover name for the secret service MI6. The name Universal Exports has been used since Dr No (1962) and was last spotted on Bond’s fake business card in Quantum of Solace.

OLD ADMIRALTY BUILDING

Located at: Pall Mall

On the opposite flank of Buckingham Palace is the Old Admiralty Building. Its Bond connect? This is where Ian Fleming, an intelligence officer before he became the creator of James Bond, worked. It was in Room 39 — Fleming’s office — of the Old Admiralty Building that the idea of Bond was born.

MI5 AND MI6

Our last stops were the MI5 and MI6 buildings off the River Thames. While MI5 is in charge of the United Kingdom’s internal security, MI6 concerns itself with foreign intelligence. James Bond is a member of MI6, but the building is out of bounds for the public.

When MI6 learned that the Thames chase scene from The World Is Not Enough was going to be filmed so close to its premises, it asked for shooting to be stopped, citing a security risk. Till foreign secretary Robin Cook overruled MI6 with: “After all Bond has done for Britain, it is the least we could do for Bond!”

Britain is Bond. Bond is Britain.

Text and location pictures: Priyanka Roy

Which is your favourite James Bond film?Tell t2@abp.in