Whilst the estate is not open to the public and only the mansion remains from the original buildings, the production used the derelict 1960s school for a variety of scenes and temporary sets including the student flat scenes. The school hall was used as the backdrop for two key scenes involving Patrick Watts (Benedict Cumberbatch) who organises the team for the annual entrance to University Challenge. One in particular features the University Challenge Co-ordinator (Ben Willbond) as he tests the team's knowledge for the qualifying round only to have the cleaning lady (Su Elliott) begin vacuuming. Watts, who takes the competition extremely seriously, becomes very distressed at the distraction to his concentration!

A number of important scenes feature Clacton Pier, the town and the sea defence rocks at the base of the pier as backdrops for Brian and his friends, Tone (James Corden) and Spencer (Dominic Cooper), as they spend time together prior to and when Brian is home from university. As Brian falls in love with Alice and becomes more and more embroiled with university life, he begins to feel more distanced from his friends and family. Spencer notices this and is concerned that Brian is changing and and not for the better in his opinion.

The sandy backdrop of Jaywick is the setting for Brian's home town. He and his mother, Julie Jackson (Catherine Tate), live in a chalet style house overlooking the vast expanse of beach. There are a number of scenes shot at Jaywick including those where Brian heads off to university whilst saying goodbye to his mother who is always concerned that he eats sufficient fruit and has enough towels! Another hilarious scene includes the one when Brian returns from university for Christmas to find his mother in the bath with Mr Whippy the ice-cream man, Des (John Henshaw).

Whilst the site is now largely residential prior to development the corridors of the former university campus buildings and some of the lecture rooms were used as backdrops for Bristol University. A main scene has Alice putting a sign up at the door to tell Brian he is needed urgently. It appears one of the University Challenge team has been run over by a bus (not hurt!) and Brian is now on the main team. He is ecstatic!

Whilst this was difficult to verify the exact location used, the scenes where Brian arrives back at University and depict a station as a backdrop with all the bicycles were filmed in Watford.