Bradshaw Insurance

Your son was a shit son and you were a shit father to him. What’s great about that reality? You don’t understand. There were moments of joy. There were moments of incredible happiness.

Traditionally, any commute you would do is from home to work. In this instance, however, it’s the opposite. Wracked by psychological trauma due to his mentally disturbed son, Ed Jacobsen (played by British acting legend Timothy Spall) is lured out of his work at Woking station to take the train to Macon Heights. The issue here being that Macon Heights doesn’t exist and ergo doesn’t have a train station. Still, somehow the train stops and he manages to visit the place. Which ends up being idyllic and life affirming. Basically, it alters the timeline of his life in a way that means his son was never conceived, thus vastly improving things for him and his wife. In the end the memories come back and he chooses to go back to trauma and ‘save’ his son, opining that grief and hardship are essential parts of human existence.

So, who the hell are Bradshaw Insurance? Well, They’re the workplace of mysterious, disappearing Linda (Tuppence Middleton of Black MIrror’s ‘White Bear’ fame). A seemingly ethereal spirit-type person, who originally alerts Ed to the wherebouts of Macon Heights. Bradshaw Insurance is never seen on screen. In fact, not a lot of workplaces are. Aside from the café where Hayley Squires‘ unnamed waitress dishes out various baked goods. All apparently free of charge. Lovely stuff.

The design is based on an insurance company that isn’t the capital of Switzerland. Well, the font is. The chessboard thing…well, that’s riffed of the flag of Surrey. Obviously Woking is in Surrey, but Macon Heights is placed geographically between Farnham and Bentley, so just on the border of Surrey and Hampshire. I went with the former.

The filming location is neither. It’s actually Poundbury in Dorset. Which is suitably other-worldly for such a story. You should look into it. The best way I could describe it is a scaled up model village. I personally find it a little bit weird and creepy, though I don’t really know why. So yeah, an excellent venue choice.