In this lecture we will learn how the great film director Alfred Hitchcock used London, and how it influenced his life and his art.

Still both instantly recognisable and widely acclaimed over 40 years after his death, Hitchcock’s greatest and bestremembered movies are usually selected from his Hollywood days. However, he spent almost exactly half his life in London and Essex, and the influences of these formative years on his later work were enormous.

From his inventive use of London locations in the 1920s and ‘30s in classics such as The Lodger and The 39 Steps, to his inspired deployment on film of the West End’s theatre stars, Hitchcock never forgot the city.

And as it helped shape his life and imagination, so he shaped it on the cinema screen.