The rooms
If you take a look at the furnishings and style of the Adelphi Wharf apartments online (or in the video we share above) you’ll notice they look totally different than in “The Circle”.
That’s because the production crews meticulously set up the apartments to make whoever was staying there feel at home! They filmed “The Circle” in the Adelphi Wharf apartments for audiences in the U.K, the U.S., Brazil, and France — and each guest on the show requires something a little different.
“So the Brazilians like it to be very light. They like to have lots of plants,” Tim Harcourt, the creator of “The Circle” told Vulture in an interview. “The Americans, they wanted all their creature comforts. We fill all their fridges with food that they loved, American food or Brazilian food. We made it feel like home to everyone that’s living in there.”
Here’s a guide on how and where to rent an apartment for a day!
The giant LED circle
You know that giant LED circle outside the building shown in every trailer and every episode of “The Circle”? Well… you can actually find it at the Adelphi Wharf.
The crew constructed the LED-lit circle and put it on the apartment building for the show, according to Harcourt in his interview with Vulture. Harcourt says it consists of a 25-meter diameter aluminum track with LED lights running through and around it.
For a great view of the building’s lights, Harcourt says “there’s a hotel in Manchester where, if you go up to the 20th floor, there’s a bar. You can quite clearly see the lights from our building if it was on.”
What’s the name of the bar in question? We’re pretty sure he is referring to the “20 Stories” bar. But that’s actually located on the 19th floor of No.1 Spinningfields. According to the bar’s website, 20 Stories includes a restaurant, bar, and rooftop terrace. And best of all — “unparalleled 360-degree views of the Manchester skyline!”
Behind the scenes
Wondering where all the production crew is when “The Circle” is filmed? In his interview with Vulture, Harcourt said the crew ran the control room out of an unused university campus building across from the apartments.
“In there, we had a huge control room, which at any time would have between 20 and 30 producers and camera ops working, recording, logging everything that was going on, and also studying the game and sending all the messages from the Circle,” he told Vulture.
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