Abhiroop Das
Helmed by Chris Columbus, Netflix’s ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ tells the story of four retired friends who live in the same luxury retirement home, named Coopers Chase Retirement Village. Desperate to overcome their boredom, they come together to solve cold cases every Sunday, flexing their brain muscles and putting their respective fields of expertise to use. However, when a murder takes place too close to home, they realize that they might have to put their sleuthing experience to practical use. Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim, and Joyce all unite their little eccentricities to create a whole larger than the sum of its parts, and launch an informal investigation. As the secrets come rolling, the plot thickens, and the protagonists soon realize that in this game, everyone is a suspect. Their retirement home becomes the center of the mystery in the process, seemingly gaining a new layer with each revelation.
Coopers Chase is a Fictional Setting Inspired by the Creator’s Personal Experiences
Coopers Chase is a fictional retirement home originally created by Richard Osman, whose eponymous novel serves as the source for the Netflix adaptation. Its on-screen visuals are brought to life by writers Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote. While the retirement home is an imagined character, it still draws strong parallels to reality, both in its appearance and function. According to the author, the home is largely inspired by his mother’s retirement village in Sussex. To that end, he drew from the experiences of the home’s residents, expressing the nuances of their lives through a fictional conduit. In a conversation with Tudum, Osman spoke about his creative process, stating, “You just sit and chat with these people, and they’ve lived these extraordinary lives. You hear these amazing stories and gossip and wisdom.”
While Coopers Chase has a well-defined pool of inspirations, it is possible that some real-life retirement homes and facilities were used as a reference for their fictional counterpart. Notably, Coopers Chase is a posh home that puts a great amount of effort into giving its residents a high-quality lifestyle. This is expressed by the finer details of the film, such as the use of llamas as support animals. As such, some of the most luxurious retirement homes, such as Signature at Highgate, located at 58 The Bishops Avenue in London, might have served as an inspiration. Another similar retirement village is Audley Scarcroft Park, in Scarcroft Court, Scarcroft, in Leeds, United Kingdom. Both these centers have many overlaps with Coopers Chase, but there are still clear differences in their essence, reiterating the latter’s fictional nature.
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A Real House in England Doubles as Coopers Chase
In order to ensure that Coopers Chase was grounded in reality, the team behind ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ undertook a practical approach to the lensing process. Reportedly, the Englefield House, situated in the village of Englefield, in Berkshire, England, served as the primary filming location for the retirement home. Constructed in 1558, the house and its surrounding estate region are of historic significance, with the gardens being openly accessible to the public on select weekdays. The house itself is usually reserved for larger gatherings, and has previously featured in a number of movies and television productions, such as ‘The King’s Speech,’ ‘The Crown,’ and ‘X-Men: First Class.’
The residence has maintained its position as one of the most iconic structures of Berkshire, and its painstakingly detailed design made it the perfect setting for the film. Netflix has noted that “its scale and architecture worked well as the ex-priory of the book (…) Within the house itself, many rooms and corridors were dressed to provide the residents with their elegant communal spaces, but there were also some substantial set builds including the Jigsaw Room where the gang congregates.” As such, a blend of complex set work and on-site filming helped ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ capture its grand and historical aesthetic in complete detail. Additionally, the authenticity of the setting likely helped the cast seamlessly fit into their respective roles.
The production designer for ‘The Thursday Murder Club,’ James Merifield, also spoke to Time Out about the crew’s decision to tape Enlefield House. He described it as a blast, bringing special attention to many of the complex’s elements, such as its gardens and churches. The latter in particular became one of the key focuses of the movie, as one of Coopers Chase’s most iconic features is its graveyard, situated near the residential building. Reportedly, the graveyard is a film-only addition to the estate and was built entirely out of polystyrene. The set work enabled the team to comfortably bring the more complex shots to life; at the same time, the authenticity of the background played its part in maintaining an air of realism.
