How the gloss rubbed off Tinseltown's love affair with Scotland

Published: 18:59, 26 June 2026 | Updated: 18:59, 26 June 2026 There was a world-weary air to the man in the crumpled suit at the ticket barriers at Glasgow’s Central Station. He could have been any careworn commuter slipping through the transport hub unnoticed. But people were noticing this straggly-haired character because a production crew was filming his every move. Passers-by squinted. It was James McAvoy – once a lad from the city’s Drumchapel estate and now a Hollywood star. Inevitably, a buzz swept through the station concourse. This, then, was a kind of homecoming – but with strings attached. McAvoy had returned to his native city to star in Meantime, a new Sky crime drama series based on the debut novel by fellow Glaswegian Frankie Boyle. But the production triggered numerous street closures and restrictions across the city – a kind of hit-and-run campaign of prohibitions as thoroughfares were pressed into action as backdrops for Boyle’s dark story about an addict who discovers a friend murdered. Not that Meantime could be blamed for a string of further road closures this month in the Southside of the city. That was the new series of Rebus – on a flying visit from its main Edinburgh base. Then there is the third series of Apple TV’s The Buccaneers which has been shooting in Glasgow in recent weeks. The giveaway for the production – starring American icon Christina Hendricks – is the Victorian makeovers invariably given to the closed streets. The show has transformed parts of Edinburgh too. Swathes of the New Town were cordoned off to allow the capital to portray a bustling corner of 1870s London with street markets, horses and carts, top hats and vintage gowns. James McAvoy is the latest big name to be spotted filming in Glasgow - a six part Sky Original series based on a book by Frankie Boyle In a couple of weeks, filming begins in Edinburgh for the second series of the Netflix hit Dept Q. The crew will be shooting scenes across the city until December. Filming for the BBC’s Rebus – yet another gritty multi-part crime drama – will continue at the same time, if not the same places. For many, the glut of productions commandeering parts of Scotland’s two biggest cities is welcome evidence of long-overdue success in the TV and film industries. Many more, naturally, are charmed by the steady flow of household names arriving in town. But might some be wondering if their city is literally becoming a film set? A place where their presence as permanent residents is tolerated but hardly encouraged? Where the most helpful thing they can do as another director calls ‘action’ is not be around? The filming activity in both cities has been gathering pace for a decade or more. Glasgow has accommodated Batman, Batgirl, Spider-Man, Indiana Jones, marauding zombies, time travellers and high-octane car chases. It has portrayed New York so many times it is surely feeling typecast. For other productions it has stood in as London, Philadelphia, San Francisco or even the fictional Gotham City. Edinburgh streets have been subjected to dystopian makeovers, Victorian makeovers, futuristic makeovers. It has played host to Captain America and Frankenstein’s monster and stood in regularly for pricier filming locations such as London and Paris. But behind the glamour and the civic flattery that comes with hosting Hollywood movies or quality TV dramas, are the city councils keeping residents and businesses on side – or are their interests increasingly a secondary consideration? It is a question usually drowned out by media noise around new filming projects, but those asking it still await answers. Among them is an unnamed Glasgow business owner who told a city council survey he lost more than £10,000 while filming was going on outside his premises –and another who stated ‘a week’s trade was down 70-80 per cent.’ A third trader, Robert Chambers, tells the Mail his business in Glasgow’s Trongate lost thousands while Batgirl was shooting on the doorstep over several weeks in late 2021 and early 2022. The final insult was when the movie was deemed too dreadful to be released. Mr Chambers’s business was operating as clothing store Social Recluse at the time of filming. He now runs Paninaro, an independent subculture shop, in the same premises. He says: ‘With Batgirl we got £1,000 compensation and you were thinking this will be over in a week, fair enough, but it was more than 30 days.’ Christina Hendricks filming The Buccaneers in Glasgow recently. Apple TV's historical drama is set in the 1870s Over the piece the compensation worked out at £30 per day and his shop had to shut for ten days during intensive filming outside. He says: ‘I would like to think the council have moved on a little bit from that and taken businesses into account just a little bit more really.’ Spider-Man’s month-long visit to Glasgow last summer prompted a downturn in trade at Argyle Street restaurant Piccolo Mondo which one of its directors, Andrea Grasso, estimates at 20 to 30 per cent. ‘We lose clientele every time there is filming around the restaurant,’ he says. ‘It’s very frustrating.’ Mr Grasso claims his was one of several businesses that complained to Glasgow City Council, but that the objections fell on deaf ears. Earlier this month it was a Glasgow councillor, Robert Mooney, asking awkward questions. How much money were these TV and film productions bringing into the city, he wanted to know.  ‘Is it prudent to be shutting parts of the city when there is so much other upheaval going on?’ he asked the economy and regeneration committee. ‘I do absolutely understand and, like everyone else, I love seeing Glasgow being highlighted in cinema, it is just that we’ve got the work on Argyle Street and George Square – it seems like the timing is not great.’ Another city centre businessman not entirely comfortable with the onslaught of film and TV productions hitting Glasgow is nightclub owner Donald MacLeod. He has long railed against disincentives – including the low emission zone and near constant road works – to city centre footfall. He tells the Mail: ‘Like most folk I get excited when I start hearing about the big names coming in, like Brad Pitt in World War Z.’ But he asks: ‘What is the economic benefit when footfall drops dramatically because of the traffic disruption?’ While he is clear that quality productions which show Glasgow in a positive light should be welcomed, he worries the city may be seen by crews as a ‘Poundland alternative to major cities like New York or Philadelphia’ –and that Glasgow City Council may be too ready to say yes to every application that comes along. He says: ‘Let’s face it, there’s been a hell of a lot of disruption in the past five years and that’s without the movies coming in. ‘You put in the middle of that a massive production like Batgirl or Indiana Jones and, yeah, you get some tourists and you get some film buffs but what are you losing? You are losing a lot of visitors who can’t park their cars or walk from A to B.’ If the seeds of discontent are breaking ground in Glasgow, they remain largely below the surface for now in Edinburgh. Yet a degree of discomfort is present there too. While accepting that TV and film productions can bring sizeable economic benefits to host cities, conservation charity the Cockburn Association laments the cultural cost. Its director Rowan Brown says: ‘The thing that upsets me about the filming and what makes it of lesser value is that it’s not actually celebrating our environments or our stories.’ She points to Glasgow as the perennial stand-in for other cities and wonders why there are not more opportunities for it to play itself. The same could well be said of Edinburgh. Oscar winning stars like Halle Berry and Brad Pitt have used Glasgow as a backdrop to their movies Ms Brown says: ‘That’s the sad thing, that we have so many phenomenal stories, books, artists, all sorts, that come out of the Central Belt of Scotland and yet we don’t seem to be able to tell our own stories, we only seem to be able to pretend to be somewhere else.’ Why does she think Edinburgh seems more willing than Glasgow to accept the constant disruption? ‘Have you ever lived in Edinburgh during the Festival? she asks. ‘Because that is the big definitive factor. Edinburgh is just used to this now. ‘It is actually the daily experience off-season in the Old Town in Edinburgh – being inconvenienced by something – so it’s just the norm.’ Yet the scale of the economic benefits may be increasingly questionable when weighed against local losses. While it is claimed filming in Glasgow has brought around half a billion pounds to the city’s economy in the past 25 years, the reality remains that a key motivation for US productions choosing Scotland is that it is cheap. A spokesman for Glasgow Film Office (GFO), part of the city council, confirms only small payments are received for the services provided in facilitating film and TV shoots. He says: ‘The only substantial payment it would receive would be if a council building or space was being used. The benefits to the wider economy of the city is what is notable.’ The spokesman adds: ‘Productions of all sizes have to eat, drink and stay in the city, as well as using local logistics (catering, transport, costume) and on occasion extras, and all of this means investment in Glasgow.’ A Freedom of Information request back in 2019 revealed a similar policy in Edinburgh. It found that the city council had received just £152,000 from film companies for closing streets and hosting crews. It was, then, a ‘revenue neutral’ cost-covering exercise with the assumption built in that economic benefits would flow from Hollywood and other productions rolling in. They included Fast & Furious 9, starring Vin Diesel and Charlize Theron and featuring all manner of car chases, vehicle flips and crashes through shop windows. Inevitably, numerous city centre roads closed over four weeks. Commuters described it as ‘a new form of torture’. And one exacted at a bargain price, it would seem. Little appears to have changed. The council’s Film Charter states: ‘In recognition of the high value of the economic benefit brought into the area on a wider scale by film work, fees for use of council property and services will be charged within the UK market norms for film work.’ A spokesman for City of Edinburgh Council tells the Mail it is up to production companies to come to their own arrangements with owners or occupants of private properties affected by filming work. She adds: ‘We don’t make a distinction between productions which want to film Edinburgh as Edinburgh and those pretending Edinburgh is somewhere else –either fictional or otherwise.’ A ‘more the merrier’ attitude prevails in both cities, then, towards projects that will put their streets and buildings in films and TV dramas – quality not a requirement. Civic pride in attracting film crews and the economic benefits which flow from their presence are routinely cited as the reasons everyone should be happy to see them there. ‘Filming in the city really does make a difference,’ says the GFO spokesman. ‘In 2024, the wider city economy was boosted by £33million thanks to productions coming here – and this is a conservative estimate, as we don’t get spend figures from every production.’ Tom Holland, the partner of Zendaya, atop a tank in Glasgow city centre - complete with the iconic Spidreman costume Glasgow succeeds because it is so versatile, he says. ‘We have a photogenic city centre with a number of architectural styles (and a grid system) that can stand in for a number of other cities.’ The council is ‘film friendly’, has ‘years of experience’ in dealing with large productions and holds a database of more than 500 spots across Glasgow with which location managers are ‘very familiar’. The spokesman added: ‘The council’s GFO is a one-stop-shop service that liaises with productions, our roads team and other city organisations to ensure filming goes as smoothly as possible while minimising the impact on the daily lives of residents and businesses.’ With Meantime, Glasgow has finally landed one of those rare productions that allows the city to play itself and tell its own story. It may be a welcome change from its relentless work as a Hollywood stunt double. But the uncomfortable question remains: is the magic of Tinseltown still vivid for those negotiating the daily disruption of their cities’ star turns? Or are local residents and traders becoming just as world-weary as James McAvoy looked at the station gates this week? No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. 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