London Zoo - in Film and Television

In Film and Television

Many films and television programmes have made use of London Zoo as a film set.

In 1947, Carol Reed took his film crew and actors Ralph Richardson; Michèle Morgan and Bobby Henrey to London Zoo to film location scenes there for The Fallen Idol (released in 1948). Scenes were filmed inside the lion house and the reptile house and on the Mappin Terraces. Today, the scenes give an historic view of what the zoo looked like in the immediate post war years.

In 2000, the Burmese python scene from the 2001 film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was filmed at the Zoo's Reptile House. In the film the inhabitant of the tank is a Burmese python, however in reality it is home to a black mamba. A plaque beside the enclosure commemorates the event.

A couple of scenes were filmed here for the ITV series Primeval. The first was a confrontation between Helen Cutter and Claudia Brown in the old elephant house. The second was a brief scene that showed Abby Maitland with a Komodo Dragon. Although the fictional Wellington Zoo played a large role in the episode, most scenes were filmed at Whipsnade Zoo.

In the "Exploitin" episode of the fifth series of Absolutely Fabulous, Edina and Patsy steal Saffy's new-born infant for a Jean-Paul Gaultier fashion shoot at the Zoo.

In the final scene from the 1987 film Withnail and I a sad Withnail is shown standing in the pouring rain next to the former wolf enclosure, declaiming the speech What a piece of work is a man from Hamlet.

Part of the 1985 film Turtle Diary, based on the novel by Russell Hoban and starring Ben Kingsley and Glenda Jackson, was also filmed here; the film follows a plan to help two of the turtles escape from the Zoo.

The music video for the Talk Talk song "It's My Life" was filmed at London Zoo in 1984. The video was used as a statement against the banality of lip-syncing and includes mostly footage from nature documentaries with shots of lead singer Mark Hollis in the Zoo keeping his mouth shut, obscured by hand-drawn animated lines.

During the 1981 film An American Werewolf in London, the lead character David Kessler (played by David Naughton) woke up naked in the wolves' enclosure. Several other animals are also seen and you can clearly see the old caged enclosures of the tigers and apes.

A scene from the 1964 film The Pumpkin Eater with Anne Bancroft and James Mason was also set at the Zoo.

Duran Duran filmed parts of the music video for their 1993 hit Come Undone at the London Zoo Aquarium section.