RICHARD MADDEN
JUNE 2022
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Xxx – date |
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Saturday 18 June
2022 |
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Happy Birthday
Richard
posted for the first time in ages … on his Instagram stories … to thank a colleague
who had ordered a chocolate cake for his birthday. Today was the final day of the Citadel
reshoots, which have been taking place at the Trilith
Studios in Atlanta.
And Gemma Chan
also posted a birthday message to Richard, a humorous one, on her stories! With
Richard having withdrawn from social media, apart from posts to publicise his
projects, Gemma is our favourite source for personal photos now. She adores Richard … which of course is
very easy to understand. Thank you
Gemma.
Citadel
co-star, Priyanka Chopra, arranged for a cereal
ice-cream wagon to visit the studio lot, with flavours named after
characters/people associated with the series. Priyanka is ‘Nadia’
and Richard is ‘Mason Kane’ … which
I had surmised for a long time … but it’s good to have it finally confirmed!
K Conroy (maybe Kane Conroy) appears to be the name assigned to Mason
following the ‘accident’ when a
number of agents have their minds wiped.
Priyanka sent birthday wishes to Richard too … she also
adores him! I’m
hopeful we’ll see Citadel, on Amazon Prime, before the end of this year and,
fingers crossed, Richard will be out and about to publicise it … hopefully in
the UK too. In the meantime, Richard is free to move on to a
new project, which I’m sure we will learn about soon. |
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Sunday 19 June
2022 |
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My friend Ruth and I decided to take a trip to
London yesterday, to celebrate Richard’s birthday, by visiting a number of
locations used in Bodyguard. We had visited a handful last November and
wanted to see more. Also, whilst we were in the Moorgate area, we
wanted to take a look at Finsbury Square, which is rumoured to have hosted
the Citadel shoot back in December! We met up at Blackfriars Thameslink
station and headed to Old Bailey as our first port of call … although we
missed the initial turning, Ludgate Hill, because
we were chatting and ended up at Smithfield Market. So much for my brilliant
navigating skills! Anyway, I
did use my A-Z to navigate our way back to Old Bailey to find ‘Pascoe House’ which is a serviced
office opposite the actual Old Bailey. We walked through St Paul’s Churchyard
to reach the nearby tube station, taking the Central Line just one stop to
Bank (which is allegedly haunted) before transferring onto the Bank branch of
the Northern Line for one stop to reach Moorgate. Having
exited the station onto Moorgate (the road), we turned left to walk a few
metres to South Place on the right – where we found the ‘Blackwood Hotel’ – we had visited this location in November, but
didn’t realise at the time, that Citypoint was just
across the junction from here! So we
retraced our steps, crossing over Moorgate to reach Ropemaker
Street, which is ‘Saltmarsh Street’
in Bodyguard. The location may have changed slightly since the filming took
place, as there is a large new building being constructed to the north side
of the street. We
returned to Moorgate, turning left to head to Finsbury Square where, I believe,
the final day/evening of UK-based filming for Citadel took place back in
December. It’s obviously a popular
filming location, as a number of large white ‘location’ facility vehicles were parked around the Square
yesterday too! We headed
back to Moorgate, to take the Northern Line to Kennington, where we changed
onto the spur line which heads to Battersea Power Station. I have to say that the area around the
station is very nice, as is Battersea in general! We didn’t
need a map to find Prince of Wales Drive which runs along the southern
perimeter of Battersea Park, but it was a long walk, as the Overstrand Mansions are near the far end thereof! We found the right doorway, namely 81 to
90, although sadly, the building was being renovated and is therefore covered
in scaffolding! Never mind, we can
always revisit at a future date. Our
adventure then took us into Battersea Park, where we sat down on a bench to
eat our lunches. We then continued our
walk along Carriage Drive South and were surprised to see more film/tv location vehicles parked alongside it – from the same
company as those we’d seen earlier in Finsbury Square! The Battersea Park Boating Lake is nice,
and frequented by wildfowl. We exited
onto Queenstown Road and then headed across Chelsea Bridge and subsequently
past the Royal Chelsea Hospital and Chelsea Barracks too. We caught
a District Line train at Sloane Square and headed to Embankment, where we
went in search of John Adam Street. We had visited it in October, when in
London for the UK Gala Screening of Eternals, but I’d only photographed one
of the buildings used, not both! We headed
to Embankment Gardens to sit down for a while, and each enjoyed a Magnum
ice-cream – mine was a mint-flavoured one. The peace was somewhat distributed,
latterly, by a ‘Cost of Living’
demonstration march which was taking place in London yesterday … Anyway,
once they had moved on, we headed across the pedestrian only Jubilee Bridge,
west side, to reach the Southbank Centre and the BFI Imax cinema beyond. I enjoyed a mango frappe, whilst Ruth had a
cappuccino coffee. We then headed back
along the Southbank to Blackfriars station where we said our goodbyes. It was a
lovely day, spent with a very good friend, with lots of Richard-related
chat! The weather wasn’t too bad – it
was humid in the morning, with a few light rain showers throughout the day,
turning a little chilly as the afternoon wore on. And it was raining when I drove out of the
station car park at 6.00pm! I have
noticed this year, that walking any kind of distance is becoming an effort
now … and I still feel stiff today … I fear I may be getting rather old … |
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I expect the next time I have something to write,
it will be with news of Richard’s next project!!! |
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