The long-running forensic crime drama is back for its 24th series.

By Eleanor Bley Griffiths

Published: Monday, 06 September 2021 at 12:00 am


It’s been a long wait, but Silent Witness is finally returning to our screens for its 24th series – with Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox) and Jack Hodgson (David Caves) back for five more intriguing cases.

The pair will be joined by newcomer Adam Yeun (played by Strangers star Jason Wong) from episode three onwards, but they’re on their own in the first doubleheader as they are called into a high-security prison to assist with a case involving a killed inmate.

While the team is still based at the Lyell Centre, as ever the drama will make use of several different locations throughout the series as they are called to a variety cases.

Interestingly, Emilia Fox recently revealed that the locations used for this series were chosen specifically to make it easier to film under Covid restrictions – with storylines changing to make this possible.

“The storylines had to adapt as we were filming under Covid restrictions,” she said. “The writers tackled this by containing us in certain locations, as we couldn’t do as much filming around London.”

Read on for everything you need to know about the locations that were used during this series.

Where is the Lyell Centre filmed?

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BBC

The Lyell Centre is located in a warehouse at BBC Park Western in Acton, where a permanent set was built eight years ago.

This is now official Silent Witness HQ with the art and props departments based in the building and ready to provide fake blood and cadavers on demand.

Where is the high-security prison filmed?

The first doubleheader of series 24 centres around a case at a high-security prison, where Nikki and Jack are called after an inmate dies during a prison riot.

In the show, the prison is called Hayworth Prison, which is not the name of a real UK prison (although could be a little nod to The Shawshank Redemption, in which a prisoner escapes his cell with help from a poster of Rita Hayworth).

So far, we’ve been unable to find what precise location was used for these scenes – but should we find out we’ll update the page accordingly.

Silent Witness returns on Monday 6th September at 9pm on BBC One. Check out what else is on with our TV Guide, or visit our Drama hub for all the latest news and features.