Keiran Goddard, a novelist born in Shard End, has seen his second novel adapted into a film that won the Audience Award at the Cannes Film Festival in May. The film, titled I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning, is due for a UK release in December and was shot largely in Shard End, where Goddard grew up. The production used The Crown pub in Shard End as an unofficial headquarters during the 2025 shoot, and the pub is now adorned with framed photos of staff with the cast and crew.
A homecoming at The Crown
During a visit to The Crown on a Monday afternoon, Goddard was greeted warmly by the barmaid, Jackie, who offered drinks on the house. The pub played a pivotal role in the film's production, not only as a filming location but also as a base for the team. Locals helped with casting, and hundreds of residents showed up for casting calls, many mistakenly wearing flat caps in the belief they were auditioning for the Peaky Blinders movie.
Goddard reflected on the pub's significance: "We couldn't have made the film without this place or at least it would have been a different kind of film." Jackie, still amazed a year later, said, "It's amazing, just unreal." Goddard admitted he snuck into an early morning screening at Cannes to "get my crying out of the way, so I don't cry on stage."
Representing working-class lives
Goddard, who now lives in south east London, has been away from Birmingham for 20 years. In a 2024 radio interview to promote the novel, he was asked about growing up in Shard End. He initially felt uneasy answering, but thought, "Fuck it. It's not like I'm taking the place of someone else who'd otherwise be on the radio talking about Shard End." He emphasised the importance of representing working-class lives in culture, noting, "It's important that lives like this are represented in culture because they're the lives that are most frequently lived in this country."
The novel follows five friends—Rhian, Patrick, Shiv, Oli and Conor—who grow up together in an unnamed city. Although the city is clearly London, Goddard deliberately avoids naming it to give the book a mythic quality. "There are Shard Ends literally everywhere," he said. "People come up to me and say, I grew up there. But it happened to be in Liverpool. Or it happened to be in Greece."
Personal memories and family ties
Goddard also revisited his teenage family home in Shard End, describing it as "small but busy, full of life and laughter." He recalled an incident when he was 14, discovering a random girl from his year asleep in his bed. She had a Saturday job at Aldi, got to know his mother, and was invited to stay after a falling out with her parents. "I was like, what the fuck is she doing there?" he laughed.
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