Scenes for Amandaland being filmed in Ferntower Road

RESIDENTS of a leafy Highbury street have spoken out about the “row” caused as filming crews made their road “look more downmarket” for a BBC series.

Neighbours in Ferntower Road – where houses can cost up to £2million – described how film crews had placed rubbish and an upended shopping trolley on the pavement to give the street a rather grittier appearance, with some rumoured to be outraged that their road would be portrayed in such a way.

The transformation came as crews arrived to film Amandaland, a spin-off of hit show Motherland. The series sees post-divorce Amanda, played by Lucy Punch, forced to move from upmarket Chiswick to South Harlesden, which she considers rather a downgrade.

While Amanda tries to reimagine the area, dubbing it “SoHa”, her mother Felicity, played by Joanna Lumley, is far from enamoured by her daughter’s new location, saying that it “smells of buses”.

The upturned trolley

Harry Wallop, who lives on the street, said that the anger spoke to “huge levels of postcode snobbery in London”.

He told the Tribune: “I think it does underline the fact that people in N5 are quite postcode proud. I suppose this bit of Islington, East Highbury, has always seen itself as slightly poor relations to the posh bit of Highbury, as in Highbury Barn, Highbury Fields.”

Mr Wallop, a journalist who wrote about the transformation in the Daily Mail on Saturday, added: “We now, for the last couple of years, with the swanky restaurants at the end of the road, with the general gentrification, quite like the fact that we are going up in the world, and here is Amandaland coming along dragging us down.”

But Laura Caine, who operates a dog-grooming business out of the house a few doors down from where filming took place, said that any irritation was misplaced.

Writer Harry Wallop has written about ‘postcode snobbery’

She said: “It’s a series, who cares. It was part of the storyline. It’s not like they’re saying Ferntower Road is grotty, they’ve made it up to be a completely different area. People should get over themselves, it’s really not that big of a deal.”

Another resident added: “If you’re filming, you’re trying to portray a story. The thing is based in Harlesden, and this does not look like Harlesden.

“I think that’s the magic of TV. I don’t know why anyone is that upset about it, there were parking issues but that’s how it’s going to be.”

Appearance of the road aside, other locals described how the filming process in itself was disruptive.

Lucy Punch

Gervais Henri, the next-door neighbour to number 49, which was chosen as Amanda’s house, said: “I have a serious health condition and they didn’t take any of that into consideration. They left all their stuff in front of our door. All their stuff in from in front of the gate.

“They worked until 10pm at night with no consideration. They stopped people from going in their houses, and people were complaining.”

“I don’t think they were too happy with the noise [from the dogs]. They kept asking me to keep it down, but what can I do?”, Ms Caine added.

The dog-groomer said, however, that the experience was “really cool”. “I got to meet Joanna Lumley and she was lovely”.