Royal Tunbridge Wells - Cultural References

Cultural References

References to Royal Tunbridge Wells occur in literature as diverse as Arthur Conan Doyle's The Valley of Fear, Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines, E. M. Forster's A Room With A View, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and Zadie Smith's White Teeth. The Inspector Bone mysteries by Susannah Stacey are also set in and around Tunbridge Wells.

David Lean's epic film Lawrence of Arabia closes with Mr. Dryden answering King Feisal: "Me, your Highness? On the whole, I wish I'd stayed in Tunbridge Wells", and in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service Tracy Di Vicenzo says to Bond that she "looks forward to living as Mr and Mrs James Bond of Acacia Avenue, Tunbridge Wells". Less well known is H. G. Wells's sending up in his 1925 book Christina Alberta's Father: "Tunbridge Wells is Tunbridge Wells, and there is nothing really like it upon our planet".

In Spitting Image, when Britain enters a revolution, Royal Tunbridge Wells declares independence under the slogan of 'liberty, equality, gardening'.

In the TV sketch comedy series Rutland Weekend Television, there is a musical sketch that tells the tale of 3 US Navy sailors who plan to spend an exciting - "More exciting than a book of Norman Mailer's" - and glamour-filled 24 hours in Royal Tunbridge Wells.

In Jasper Fforde's book "Lost in a Good Book" one of the Thursday Next series of books, it is stated on Toad News that Tunbridge Wells is to be given to the Russians as War reparations for the Crimean War (which in the world that the book is set has gone on for the past 130 years).