Filming starts in Bolton of new drama starring Hollywood favourite Ewan McGregor

Filming is due to start in Bolton of a new UK drama featuring Hollywood star Ewan McGregor.

In the latest in an ever-growing line of location managers choosing the town and its architecture for film and TV shoots Victoria Square, outside Bolton Town Hall in the town centre, has been fenced off with film crews, trucks and equipment pictured within the cordon.

Star Wars and Trainspotting actor McGregor, 51, has previously said he's 'very excited' to star in 'A Gentleman In Moscow', adapted for the screen from the best-selling novel by Amor Towles and also said to star Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

The Scottish star will lead the cast as Count Alexander Rostov and will also serve as an executive producer on the Paramount+ series, with rumours swirling on social media that Bolton Town Hall could double as the Kremlin or a grandiose Russian hotel. Fake snow has been sprayed onto the Grade I-listed building's steps.

Signs currently in place reveal roads will be closed to allow for filming from Monday until Thursday, March 2, with a section of Le Mans Crescent also sealed off.

The news comes as Bolton landmarks featured prominently in the final series of Sally Wainwright's BAFTA-winning Happy Valley, starring Sarah Lancashire as embattled cop Sergeant Catherine Cawood. Locations included Amico Cafe on Corporation Street in Bolton, where Lancashire's character rumbled her sister taking her grandson to prison to see his father, murderer and sex offender Tommy Lee Royce, played by James Norton.

Scenes of Royce's dramatic court escape were filmed at the former Bolton magistrates' court on Le Mans Crescent and beside the former police station next door.

Set in the aftermath of the Russian revolution, McGregor's character Count