The hugely successful television series The Night Manager, based upon the book by John Le Carré and which is currently running on the BBC, owes much of its glamour and appeal to the stunning scenes and spectacular views which are set in and around north Mallorca.
Many viewers will have been very surprised to see these somewhat less well known areas of Mallorca, being more familiar with the frequent media images of drunken, debauched European youths cavorting throughout the bars of Magaluf on the south west of the Island.
A key location used in the filming is the beautiful 17th century fort of the sa Fortaleza Estate situated on the Punta de l’Avançada, a promontory on the north side of the Badia de Pollença, close to the town of Port de Pollença. This magnificent setting is used throughout the series as the home of the arms dealer Richard Roper played by Hugh Laurie.
Ca’s Patro March, a seafood restaurant perched on a cliff above the bay of Cala de Deià on the north west coast of the Island was the setting for the attempted kidnapping of Roper’s son. This beautiful location is a 30-minute walk from the village of Deià, bordered on one side by magnificent sea views and on the other by the inspiring Tramuntana mountain range, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The restaurant is popular with tourists and its fish and shell fish are freshly caught by local fishermen daily.
Other locations used in the series shoot took place in and around the capital Palma with several places posing as venues in mainland Spain or Monaco. Five minutes’ drive from the City centre and located on the water’s edge overlooking the Mediterranean is the Hotel Hospes Maricel and Spa. A converted 16th century mansion house and now a sophisticated, chic 5 star hotel, this beautiful setting was used in a number of episodes as a hotel restaurant in Monaco.
The Sadrassana Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge in the Plaça Drassanes within the old part of the City is a romantic old Mallorcan manor which specialises in serving locally inspired dishes. This is where Angela Burr, played by Olivia Colman, has her meeting in episode four, purportedly in Madrid.
The remaining two episodes of the series are scheduled for screening on BBC 1 at 9.00pm on Sunday 20th March and 9.00pm on Easter Sunday, the 27th March. For those of you who know Mallorca, how many more hidden charms will you recognise?
