Celeb town where houses only average £194k and Reform | UK News

Runcorn is not just the Cheshire town where Reform made historical past, going from having nearly no illustration in the town at all to declaring a win and triumphantly beating Labour by six votes. It also has shocking movie star connections, with the beloved sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps being set there.

Former Death in Paradise star Ralf Little and his Two Pints co-star Will Mellor took a journey down reminiscence lane final yr by revisiting the well-known Archer pub on Runcorn High Street, where main scenes from the show have been filmed in the early 2000s. Although they named it The Archer for the aim of the show, it had truly been referred to as The Waterloo – but now it is nearly unrecognisable. Will and Ralf have been open-mouthed to return virtually a quarter of a century after they’d filmed their first scene there, only to discover it had remodeled into a Buddhist temple with its own resident monks.

It’s now identified as Wat Phra Singh UK – and while the Two Pints stars downed many a lager there, both in real-life and for the screen, Buddhists are historically tee-total and in historical past have been more seemingly to produce and promote wine than to drink it.

The title interprets from Thai to “the temple of the holy lion” – and the crew who took over the 200-year-old building have been impressed to title it that after seeing a stone lion atop – a trademark function which was cherished by locals.

It now houses a meditation room with a six meter tall bronze spiritual statue made by Buddhist monks from Chiang Mai, and has its own Peace Garden where locals can destress.

Meanwhile, Ralf, who performed Johnny Keogh in the BBC show, was astonished by the transformation.

“20 years ago this was a pub that we have lots of memories in, hazy memories. Now we are a little bit older and trying to be a little bit wiser now, it is much a calmer place,” he mused.

Despite the movie star connections, the town is surprisingly inexpensive, with home costs in Runcorn have an general average of £193,750 over the final yr.

He and Ralf revisited those recollections for their show on U&Dave, Should Know Better – but it is not just them who have nostalgic recollections of Runcorn, as they also shared filming periods with the likes of Kathryn Drysdale (Louise in Two Pints, Genevieve Delacroix in Bridgerton, and Arya Stark in Game of Thrones.

Other solid members included Sheridan Smith (Janet), who’s also been in Gavin and Stacey, Benidorm and a string of theatrical performances, and Cash In The Attic’s narrator Natalie Casey, who was Donna on Two Pints and had some success in musicals like Legally Blonde.

Reform has mentioned it can step in to succeed where Labour has failed at defending working-class people – and those have been precisely the sort of people Two Pints portrayed in Runcorn, who typically made hilariously self-deprecating feedback about themselves and where they lived.