History Main / BritainIsOnlyLondon

* ''Film/AcrossTheUniverse'''s England-based scenes were set in (and for the most part filmed in) Liverpool, but then it ''is'' a JukeboxMusical based around the discography of ''[[Music/TheBeatles The Beatles]]'', so it isn't a bold choice of setting.

* Creator/RossGrant likes to remind aspiring UK-based actors that they don't have to move to London to "make it", and that there's a very active film and television industry in the north (he's Manchester based) - considering the likes of ''Series/CoronationStreet'', ''{{Series/Hollyoaks}}'', ''Series/{{Emmerdale}}'', and ''Series/LastTangoInHalifax'' are all filmed up there. It has been noted, however, that the creation of the Creator/{{ITV}}1 monolith, based inevitably in London, has effectively killed the old ITV regions for everything except residual functions like local news. Large production facilties in Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester are now just memories or empty derelict shells awaiting demolition. [[note]]Manchester City Council, at the time of writing, was trying to get heritage/museum artefact status for the old illuminated letters atop the former Granada TV building, which could be seen a long way across the city at night - which does tend to say it all about the demise of regional TV programme-making[[/note]]

** In ''Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy'', Louise Kavanagh goes to London because she's unfamiliar with Earth, but as her planet is based on [=19th=] Century England the name at least is familiar. However as the land outside the arcologies has been devastated by ecological destruction and the vast armarda storms, it's likely that for all practical purposes the arcology of London really ''is'' all of Britain.

** Except for ''The Brightonomicon'', which is set in Brighton. Naturally, the narrator had come to Brighton from Brentford.
** Like the author, who used to live in (or near) Brentford and now lives in (or near) Brighton.

* Averted in the Greg Mandel trilogy by Creator/PeterFHamilton, where most of the action takes place around Peterborough. This is because GlobalWarming and the subsequent evacuations due to flooding led to a concentration of refugees in the city, and Britain's extreme left-wing government was forced to allow foreign investment to bring in jobs and alleviate the costs. Now the New Conservatives are back in power, the area has become the center of Britain's industrial restoration.

* Averted in the Greg Mandel trilogy by Creator/PeterFHamilton, where most of the action takes place around Peterborough. This is because GlobalWarming and the subsequent evacuations due to flooding led to a concentration of refugees in the city, and Britain's extreme left-wing government was forced to allow foreign investment to bring in jobs and alleviate the costs. Now the New Conservatives are back in power, the area had become the center of Britain's industrial restoration.

Despite the real-life London being 607 sq miles in area, the characters will never leave Central London (around 24 square miles), if they even make it more than half a mile from the river. London is just one city in ''England'', which is itself just one of ''three'' countries (England, Scotland, Wales) that makes up Great Britain, the largest island in the United Kingdom, which includes the Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, and lots of other islands (see UsefulNotes/BritainVersusTheUK if you've just gone all cross-eyed). Hollywood England is a tiny place. It's an island, for trope's sake! While there may be a bit more to it than just London, it's not a whole lot more. If UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}}, UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} and UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland cross their fingers and hope ''really hard'', they might just make an appearance in the form of {{Scotireland}}. The Isle of Man and Channel Islands are just plain out of luck. Unless they come into play, the only other place in Britain is basically just a giant field outside London that is home to some sheep, a few cows, some [[CampbellCountry supernatural monsters]], [[{{Barsetshire}} a village]], a couple of [[Series/DowntonAbbey English]] [[Series/ToTheManorBorn manors]], a [[Literature/BlandingsCastle castle]] [[Series/BridesheadRevisited or two]] and [[SmallReferencePools Stonehenge]].

Are aliens landing in [=UFOs=]? They'll land in Hyde Park. Is there a neighbourhood full of world-class martial artists with superhuman powers? It's probably right off of Shaftesbury Avenue. Is there a mysterious gigantic cavern hidden just beneath the Earth's surface, wherein ThePrecursors created all life on Earth? There's probably a sealed tunnel in UsefulNotes/TheLondonUnderground that breaches right into it. Are you looking for TheLeader of a secret den of werewolves? He's probably [[Music/WarrenZevon drinking a piña colada down at Trader Vic's]].[[note]]And his hair is perfect.[[/note]] UltimateShowdownOfUltimateDestiny? Wembley Stadium has front-row seats. A magical gateway between worlds? Look in the London Underground again — or keep your eye out for an [[Series/DoctorWho out-of-place police box]]. ZombieApocalypse or ThePlague has broken out? The epicenter is in Neasden.

* It becomes clearer, as the literature/{{Discworld}} develops more depth and detail, that the great smelly city of Ankh-Morpork is a FantasyCounterpartCulture of London, taken UpToEleven. the City Mappe features a suspiciously familiar wiggly river with lots of Thames-like twists and turns. It even has an "Isle of Gods" in roughly the plae where the Isle of Dogs appears on London's map, and district names like Dimwell and Dolly Sisters echo locations in London, as do many street names [[note]]In the overall conception, nearby areas like Lancre (Lancashire), The Chalk (Wiltshire, Somerset and The Downs) and The Shires (a Borsetshire-like rural England) fill the spaces for England as a whole. The capital city, however, is a steampunk fantasy London. [[/note]]

Despite the real-life London being 607 sq miles in area, the characters will never leave Central London (around 24 square miles), if they even make it more than half a mile from the river. London is just one city in ''England'', which is itself just one of ''four'' countries that makes up Great Britain, the largest island in the United Kingdom, which includes Northern Ireland and lots of other islands (see UsefulNotes/BritainVersusTheUK if you've just gone all cross-eyed). Hollywood England is a tiny place. It's an island, for trope's sake! While there may be a bit more to it than just London, it's not a whole lot more. If UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}}, UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} and UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland cross their fingers and hope ''really hard'', they might just make an appearance in the form of {{Scotireland}}. The Isle of Man and Channel Islands are just plain out of luck. Unless they come into play, the only other place in Britain is basically just a giant field outside London that is home to some sheep, a few cows, some [[CampbellCountry supernatural monsters]], [[{{Barsetshire}} a village]], a couple of [[Series/DowntonAbbey English]] [[Series/ToTheManorBorn manors]], a [[Literature/BlandingsCastle castle]] [[Series/BridesheadRevisited or two]] and [[SmallReferencePools Stonehenge]].

* Creator/RossGrant likes to remind aspiring UK-based actors that they don't have to move to London to "make it", and that there's a very active film and television industry in the north (he's Manchester based) - considering the likes of ''Series/CoronationStreet'', ''{{Series/Hollyoaks}}'', ''Series/{{Emmerdale}}'', and ''Series/LastTangoInHalifax'' are all filmed up there. It has been noted, however, that the creation of the Creator/{{ITV}}1 monolith, based inevitably in London, has effectively killed the old ITV regions for everything except residual functions like local news. Large production facilties in Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester are now just memories or enpty derelict shells awaiting demolition. [[note]]Manchester City Council, at the time of writing, was trying to get heritage/museum artefact status for the old illuminated letters atop the former Granada TV building, which could be seen a long way across the city at night - which does tend to say it all about the demise of regional TV programme-making[[/note]]

* ''Series/{{Friends}}'' [[LampshadeHanging hung a lampshade]] on this with the character of Emily whose (British) uncle said she was from London, then corrected it to "Well, Shropshire...but you know..." (her actress Helen Baxendale is from Yorkshire, which is slightly less further away). But of course when they go to England for the wedding, it's in London.

* In the FightingGame genre, almost all of the British characters with English-speaking voice actors ([[VideoGame/StreetFighter Dudley]], [[VideoGame/StreetFighter Cammy]], [[VideoGame/SoulSeries Ivy]], [[VideoGame/DeadOrAlive Christie]], [[VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters Leanne]] etc) are ALL apparently from London (Ivy is specified as being so), or at least the South East, judging by their [[AhPea RP]] accents. ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'''s Steve Fox provides a variation (having more of a cockney accent in the English dub) but this still firmly pegs him as a Londoner.

* Averted in ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'': while there is a brief period of time that Negi and co. are in London, they end up traveling to Wales. Some of their classmates do manage to find the first group from [[OneInAMillionChance just wandering around London]], but that's normal for [[BornLucky Sakurako]].

Despite the real-life London being 607 sq miles in area, the characters will never leave Central London (around 24 square miles), if they even make it more than half a mile from the river. London is just one city in ''England'', which is itself just one of ''four'' countries that makes up Great Britain, the largest island in the United Kingdom, which includes Northern Ireland and lots of other islands (see UsefulNotes/BritainVersusTheUK if you've just gone all cross-eyed). Hollywood England is a tiny place. It's an island, for trope's sake! While there may be a bit more to it than just London, it's not a whole lot more. If UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}}, UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} and UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland cross their fingers and hope ''really hard'', they might just make an appearance in the form of {{Scotireland}}. The Isle of Man is just plain out of luck. Unless they come into play, the only other place in Britain is basically just a giant field outside London that is home to some sheep, a few cows, some [[CampbellCountry supernatural monsters]], [[{{Barsetshire}} a village]], a couple of [[Series/DowntonAbbey English]] [[Series/ToTheManorBorn manors]], a [[Literature/BlandingsCastle castle]] [[Series/BridesheadRevisited or two]] and [[SmallReferencePools Stonehenge]].

Despite the real-life London being 607 sq miles in area, the characters will never leave Central London (around 24 square miles), if they even make it more than half a mile from the river. London is just one city in ''England'', which is itself just one of ''three'' countries that makes up Great Britain, the largest island in the United Kingdom, which includes Northern Ireland and lots of other islands (see UsefulNotes/BritainVersusTheUK if you've just gone all cross-eyed). Hollywood England is a tiny place. It's an island, for trope's sake! While there may be a bit more to it than just London, it's not a whole lot more. If UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}}, UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} and UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland cross their fingers and hope ''really hard'', they might just make an appearance in the form of {{Scotireland}}. The Isle of Man is just plain out of luck. Unless they come into play, the only other place in Britain is basically just a giant field outside London that is home to some sheep, a few cows, some [[CampbellCountry supernatural monsters]], [[{{Barsetshire}} a village]], a couple of [[Series/DowntonAbbey English]] [[Series/ToTheManorBorn manors]], a [[Literature/BlandingsCastle castle]] [[Series/BridesheadRevisited or two]] and [[SmallReferencePools Stonehenge]].

Note: A version of this trope is far OlderThanSteam: P'tah was an Egyptian god; his temple in the city we know as 'Memphis' was known as 'Hwt-Ka-P'tah'. Impressed Cretan traders called that city by the same name, and eventually, all Greeks called the country the city was in 'Aeligkipta' from which we get 'Egypt'—we call the country by the name foreigners gave to the city because they mostly talked about the temple in it.

Note: A version of this trope is far OlderThanSteam: P'tah was an Egyptian god; his temple in the city we know as 'Memphis' was known as 'Hwt-Ka-P'tah'. Impressed Cretan traders called that city by the same name, and eventually all Greeks called the country the city was in 'Ækipta' from which we get 'Egypt'—we call the country by the name foreigners gave to the city because they mostly talked about the temple in it.

Compare BigApplesauce, HollywoodProvincialism, CanadaDoesNotExist, TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse, FreestateAmsterdam, and NewYorkIsOnlyManhattan. France gets a very similar treatment with GayParee. A strange variation occurs in Irish media, with a huge number of productions set in Dublin. In UsefulNotes/NewZealand, the country's largest city, Auckland, tends to be used this way, if [[SceneryPorn natural scenery]] isn't involved. Contrast AliensInCardiff and OopNorth.

** Very much averted in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedValhalla'' where Eivor and the Raven Clan settle in a small English town known as Ravensthorpe which is located in the East Midlands region. Additionally, the cities of Norwich, Leicester, York, Winchester, and of course London can be visited by the player in the story or free roam for themselves.

** Very much averted in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedValhalla'' where Eivor and the Raven Clan settle in a small English town known as Ravensthorpe which is located in the East Midlands region. Additionally, the cities of Northwich, Leicester, York, Winchester, and of course London can be visited by the player in the story or during freeroam.

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedSyndicate'' is set in UsefulNotes/VictorianBritain with a heavy focus on its street gangs amidst the rampant industrialization and poverty affecting the rest of the country. The city which serves as the backdrop of the events that occur throughout the story? London, especially it's [[LondonGangster ever so prevalent criminal underworld]].

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedSyndicate'' is set in UsefulNotes/VictorianBritain with a heavy focus on its street gangs amidst the rampant industrialization and poverty affecting the rest of the country. The city which serves as the backdrop of the events that occur throughout the story? London, especially it's [[LondonGangster|ever so prevalent criminal underworld]].
* Another example from the [[Creator/{{Ubisoft}} same developer as ''Syndicate'']] is ''VideoGame/WatchDogsLegion'' which is about a near-futuristic version of London that is under occupation by the private military company Albion after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union and Scotland subsequently decided to secede and become an independent country.