Big Ben - Significance in Popular Culture

Significance in Popular Culture

The clock has become a symbol of the United Kingdom and London, particularly in the visual media. When a television or film-maker wishes to indicate a generic location in Britain, a popular way to do so is to show an image of the tower, often with a red double-decker bus or black cab in the foreground.

The sound of the clock chiming has also been used this way in audio media, but as the Westminster Quarters are heard from other clocks and other devices, the unique nature of this sound has been considerably diluted. Big Ben is a focus of New Year celebrations in the United Kingdom, with radio and TV stations tuning to its chimes to welcome the start of the New Year. As well, to welcome in 2012, the clock tower itself was lit with fireworks that exploded at every toll of Big Ben. Similarly, on Remembrance Day, the chimes of Big Ben are broadcast to mark the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month and the start of two minutes' silence. Londoners who live an appropriate distance from the Tower and Big Ben can, by means of listening to the chimes both live and on analogue radio, hear the bell strike thirteen times. This is possible due to what amounts to an offset between live and electronically transmitted chimes since the speed of sound is a lot slower than the speed of radio waves. Guests are invited to count the chimes aloud as the radio is gradually turned down.

ITN's News at Ten opening sequence formerly featured an image of Clock Tower with the sound of Big Ben's chimes punctuating the announcement of the news headlines. The Big Ben chimes (known within ITN as "The Bongs") continue to be used during the headlines and all ITV News bulletins use a graphic based on the Westminster clock dial. Big Ben can also be heard striking the hour before some news bulletins on BBC Radio 4 (6 pm and midnight, plus 10 pm on Sundays) and the BBC World Service, a practice that began on 31 December 1923. The sound of the chimes are sent in real time from a microphone permanently installed in the tower and connected by line to Broadcasting House.

The Tower has appeared in many films, most notably in the 1978 version of The Thirty Nine Steps, in which the hero, Richard Hannay, attempted to halt the clock's progress (to prevent a linked bomb detonating) by hanging from the minute hand of its western dial. In the fourth James Bond film, Thunderball, a mistaken extra strike of Big Ben on the hour is designated by criminal organisation SPECTRE to be the signal that the British Government has acceded to its nuclear extortion demands. It was also used in the filming of Shanghai Knights starring Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson, and was depicted as being partially destroyed in the Doctor Who episode "Aliens of London". Big Ben was also featured in the closing scene of James McTeigue's film V for Vendetta in which a futuristic depiction of Guy Fawkes succeeds in blowing up parliament, and the tower's bells and pendulum are sounded with a final screech at the beginning of the explosion. The apparent "thirteen chimes" detailed above was also a major plot device in the Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons episode, "Big Ben Strikes Again". It has featured prominently in several animated Walt Disney films, including The Great Mouse Detective, Peter Pan and Cars 2.

At the close of the polls for the 2010 General Election the results of the national exit poll were projected onto the south side of the clock tower.