‘Artists are moving here from Brooklyn’: Empire of Light puts Margate’s magic in the picture

The east Kent seaside setting for Sam Mendes’ latest film is now home to stylish restaurants and bars, and world-class artists

“The skinheads had come to Margate to fight,” wrote Paul Theroux in The Kingdom by the Sea. His journey around the English coast in 1982 began in Margate, but he didn’t stay long. “They gathered across the promenade from an amusement arcade called Dreamland.” Theroux’s Eliot-inspired account is grim; a sad window into Thatcher’s Britain and the decay of its once-prospering littoral.

On the surface, Margate is unchanged: deco Dreamland and brutalist Arlington House still dominate the main strip; the old town’s Georgian muddle adds chipped charm. It was the location for the filming of Sam Mendes’ new, 1980s-set flick, Empire of Light (out this week). “Margate really lends itself to being a filmic piece,” says production designer Mark Tildesley. “It’s superbly contained – almost like the backlot of a film studio.”