Middle Temple, Middle Temple Lane, EC4
Middle temple is one of the city’s four Inns of Court, the societies to which all English barristers must belong. And if you’ve read, or seen, The Da Vinci Code, you’ll already know that the Temple area is named for the Knights Templar. In John Madden’s Shakespeare In Love, the command performance of Two Gentlemen of Verona for Queen Elizabeth (Judi Dench), supposedly in the ‘Banqueting Hall at the Palace of Whitehall’, is held in the Great Hall of Middle Temple. The Hall is arguably the finest example of an Elizabethan hall in the country, spanned by a magnificent double hammer beam roof. Begun in 1562, it has remained virtually unaltered to the present day. Yes, Queen Elizabeth I really attended the hall.
As tradition has it that Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night was first performed in Middle Temple Hall, it’s fitting that a Shakespearian quote – from Henry VI, Part 2 – kicks off the Boulting brothers’ 1957 film Brothers in Law: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”.
Even if the film never quite aims for the savagery of Shakespeare, it’s still an enjoyable reminder of the gentle satire of the period, set in the leafy courts of the Temple. Newly called to the bar, Roger Thursby (played by the quintessentially innocent everyman Ian Carmichael) learns the tricks of the legal trade as pupil of scatty Miles Malleson in his chambers at 6 King’s Bench Walk, Inner Temple. The only perceptible change in the location since the film was shot, and probably in the last two hundred years, is the glow of computer screens from the windows.
Following the flustered Malleson to the courts, Carmichael emerges onto the Strand, alongside the venerable George Inn, from Devereux Court – named after Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex and favourite of Elizabeth I, whose house once stood on the narrow lane. Essex, who lost his head after falling out of favour with the Queen, was played by Errol Flynn in Hollywood’s, no doubt historically precise, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex.
Trivia: Middle Temple was also used for the law court scenes in Wilde, with Stephen Fry as the writer and wit.
Shakespeare In Love (1998, dir: John Madden)
Wilde (1998, dir: Brian Gilbert)
Brothers In Law (1957, dir: Roy Boulting)
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