Inside the Pontefract film studios where Adolescence was made

BBC News

22-03-2025

From its chilling plot to its single-take episodes, Netflix drama Adolescence has gripped viewers' attention, racking up more than 24 million views in the past week.The gritty, four-part series has also become one of the most talked about shows on TV, receiving praise from politicians and police for shining a light on online misogyny and violence against women and girls. Written by Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, the show was filmed in and around studios in a former West Yorkshire mining town, which has also hosted some of the biggest names in entertainment.Following the show's success, the BBC took a tour of Production Park in South Kirkby, near Wakefield, to see how it was made.
Stood in an empty and echoey 14,500 sq ft (1,350 sq m) room as tall as a four-storey building, it is hard to imagine some of the most intimate scenes in Adolescence were filmed in what is known as Studio 005.Crews spent six weeks here building key sets, including the police station and young offenders institute."We know how much detail and attention went into the production. We saw it first-hand," says Production Park's head of external affairs, Jim Farmery."Me and my colleagues would walk around with the artistic director and get lost - we were transported into a completely different space," adds the facility's head of production services, Richard Blair.Mr Blair says real police stations and hospitals "tend to be quite difficult to film in", especially for extended periods of time."It makes it much more practical to come into a studio like ours."Adolescence was filmed at or near Production Park over six months between March and September 2024.
The show's producers, WARP Films, had "envisioned it being a northern production from the very beginning", says Mr Blair.The Sheffield-based company's previous projects include This is England, The Virtues and Everybody's Talking About Jamie - all set away from the capital."There's no reason why Yorkshire can't host these sort of productions," says Mr Farmery, who reveals other production companies have expressed an interest in using Production Park since the release of Adolescence.
The school scenes in Adolescence were filmed at Minsthorpe Community College, just a five-minute drive from Production Park, while a nearby suburban setting was used to shoot the opening scene, which sees a 13-year-old boy arrested for the fatal stabbing of a teenage girl.Young couple Dylan Naylor and Bethany Fletcher's 1960s semi-detached home in South Kirkby stood in for the house where Graham's character Eddie Miller lives. They moved out with their children for three months for filming to take place after they responded to a letter of interest posted through their door."Everything needed to be within a 10-minute drive of Production Park to facilitate the one-shot approach," says Mr Blair."It makes it feel so much more engaging and like you are in the room with them," he adds.
As well as TV and film production, some of the biggest names in music - including Beyoncé, Pink and Coldplay - have prepared for world tours at Production Park.The 30-acre (121,400 sq m) site hosts six adaptable studios to allow for stages to be built, rehearsals to take place, lighting and sound checks and more."They treat it as if they are going to an arena," says one of the 500 staff working at what their colleague describes as a "production ecosystem".It also plays host to about 200 students undertaking courses related to the live entertainment industry.
Staff claim the rigging system on the ceiling of Studio 005 is so big it could hold a Boeing 747 aeroplane, meaning even the most ambitious productions can be supported on this industrial estate in a quiet corner of West Yorkshire.Classic theatre productions including Les Misérables and Wicked have also come to life here, while a life-size boat was built in another studio to recreate a vessel at sea as part of filming for the 2023 show Boat Story.Elsewhere on site, a state-of-the art LED screen can display different environments - from kitchens to snow-topped mountains - to create and extend scenes, providing a variety of different backdrops for productions and reducing their carbon footprint by cutting down on the amount of travel needed for filming.
"The possibilities in here are kind of endless," says Mr Blair."It's exciting to see what happens next.""The missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle had been a large-scale drama," adds Mr Farmery"We are really, really proud of Adolescence. To help make a production like that was fantastic."