This Town is a six-part British television series for BBC One, featuring a group of young people drawn into the world of ska and two-tone music in Coventry and Birmingham in the late '70s and early '80s.

Produced by Kudos and co-produced by Universal Music Group’s Mercury Studios with original music written for the series by Kae Tempest.

Written and created by Steven Knight and directed by Paul Whittington with Ben Wheeler as DOP, Julian Nagel as Designer and Bethan Edwards Wilson as Set Dec. I joined the production during the second block and given responsibility for the following fabulous sets.

Birmingham Riot

Two streets of approximately twenty shop windows with one day to dress.

Just add: three burnt out cars, a fire engine, one rather rowdy mob & an extremely well-behaved Alsation.

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Art Direction: Chris Agnew

Matty’s Squat

An absolute dream of a set to create - the home of a nineteen year old drummer girl slumming it in a fucked-up fairytale of a space in the working class suburb of South Birmingham. Inspired in equal parts by the colours & textures of Robert Polidori's Havana series and each and every shady student house I frequented during my youth in the 90s.

Steven Knight's female characters are unfailingly written as powerful and complicated women working of their own volition, and Matty was no exception - an intriguingly multi-faceted character that was an absolute pleasure to draw out through a palimpsest of skip finds, antique textiles, vintage furniture and repurposed objects.

Particular praise goes to Daniel Pickles, a long-time pal and now frequent collaborator of mine who added incredible graffiti in-situ onto the walls and also on the furniture and additionally loaned me several of his loose-leaf drawings and sketchbooks to use as dressing. All the other incredible graphics were supplied by the amazing Chris Aldom and his terrific team (original hand-written tapes excluded - these were one of all-time most serendipitous ebay finds).

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Dressing Plans & Props

Minerva Discs

Dressing Plans

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