Hugh Laurie filmed inside Oscar Wilde’s prison: The filming locations of The Wanted Man
The Wanted Man
Hugh Laurie is back. Not as a genius diagnostician this time, but as a crime boss on the run – and he filmed part of the series inside the Victorian prison in Reading where Oscar Wilde served two years of hard labour. Principal photography began in the UK in May 2025 and ran through December 2025.
The Wanted Man is an eight-episode crime thriller created and written by George Kay – the showrunner behind Apple TV+’s Hijack and co-creator of Killing Eve – and produced by New Pictures and Observatory Pictures. It stars and is executive produced by Hugh Laurie. The series was filmed under the working title Capital. First-look images were released on September 24, 2026. The series premieres on Apple TV+ on January 6, 2027.
The series explores power, betrayal, loyalty and survival – a crime boss on the run, a story built around the kind of moral ambiguity that Kay’s previous work has always inhabited. Thandiwe Newton, Fionn Whitehead, Gina McKee, Hazel Doupe, Elliott Heffernan and Stephen Dillane complete the ensemble.
The series was filmed at HM Prison Reading (Reading Gaol) – the Victorian Gothic brick prison in the centre of Reading that held Oscar Wilde from 1895 to 1897. It was inside these walls that Wilde wrote De Profundis, his extended letter from captivity to Lord Alfred Douglas. He also memorialised the experience in The Ballad of Reading Gaol, written after his release.
The prison closed as an operational facility in 2013 and has since become an arts venue – hosting Banksy’s Unfreedom of Speech project and theatrical productions.
Reading Gaol is not new to fiction. It has frequently served as a backdrop or on-location set for various television dramas – including, appropriately, Killing Eve, the show that shares a creator with The Wanted Man. F
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Beyond the prison walls, the Capital crew was spotted working at additional Reading locations. Local social media posts mentioned filming at the Padel Hub – the sports facility just south of the tunnel under the railway – and at the old Reading Post Office building opposite Rivermead.
Additional filming took place across London locations – we have no specific locations yet.
The Wanted Man premieres on Apple TV+ on January 6, 2027.
SOURCE
Apple TV // / Local Reading social media
CREDITS
© Apple TV, New Pictures, Observatory Pictures
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