BOLTON is attracting national media attention as it continues to receive a prime time billing.

As reported in The Bolton News previously, the town’s Le Mans Crescent is being featured in hit dramas on Sunday night – the Ipcress File and Peaky Blinders.

The stunning architecture has quite rightly caught the eye of a national newspaper and also, apparently, the popular daytime show This Morning.

The Bolton News: 'It's a Sin' transformed Le Mans into London'It's a Sin' transformed Le Mans into London

And more people are beginning to recognise Bolton as the Hollywood of the North.

The Daily Mail devoted a whole page about the town and its filming connections.

The article states: “America has Hollywood, India has Bollywood, and now Britain has… Bolton.” And describes Le Mans Crescent, as an ‘impressive sweep of Grade II listed civic buildings from the 1930s’.

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Producer of the first series of Bancroft Phil Collinson compared the crescent to New York and Paris by a television producer who is putting the town on screens across the globe.

 

He told how deliberately chose the town as the location for the four-part series, starring Sarah Parish.

Phil said: “Bolton has an incredible Victorian crescent, town hall and civic centre. It really feels like Paris or New York around there with the old cobbled streets and big sandstone buildings.

“Then once you get inside there are long marble corridors and great big open spaces.

“The whole things feels special. Steeped in history.

He added: “The locations are a big star of this show and really important to the atmosphere of the whole thing.”

Filming is currently taking place for the detective drama Ridley with Line of Duty star Adrian Dunbar. Filming will also start on Happy Valley, which also filmed in Bolton School, which also often lands a starring role in hit dramas.