Bowling alley and motorway stop get TV makeover

Filming for television drama Slow Horses has helped provide improvements at a motorway service station and bowling alley.

Go Bowling in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, and Beaconsfield Services, on the M40 in Buckinghamshire, both featured in the fourth episode of the latest season of the Apple TV+ spy thriller which stars Sir Gary Oldman.

Motorway stop operator Extra MSA said income from the production would fund refurbishments to its grounds and facilities, including parking and landscaping.

In December 2024, film crews redecorated the bowling venue for their scenes.

This included painting some of the walls pink and yellow, which owners liked enough to keep after the shoot ended.

James Brennan, a mechanic at the bowling alley who supervised filming, said: "When they came in, they said they were going to paint it pink and yellow and I said absolutely not, that sounds horrendous.

"But when they put it up, it looks great actually. The consensus of all the customers is that they liked it as well, so we kept it."

Brennan described the crew as a "well-oiled machine", adding that they used "a bit of trickery" to make two separate split corridors look like one continuous hallway on screen.

Weeks before arriving at the bowling alley, cast and crew filmed inside Beaconsfield Services and its car park.

Operations director Ross Mendenhall said hosting the filming was a "really exciting experience".

"Watching the scale of activity involved in bringing a production of this size to life was fascinating," he said.

"The cast and crew were a pleasure to work with and worked closely with us to minimise disruption for our customers throughout the process."

Season six of the programme hit screens last month and the latest episode was available from Wednesday.

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