CREDITS LOVE ACTUALLY, 2003 dir: Richard Curtis Hugh Grant Martine McCutcheon Alan Rickman Liam Neeson Chiwetel Ejiofor Colin Firth Keira Knightley Bill Nighy Emma Thompson Billy Bob Thornton Andrew Lincoln

“I'd like to go to Wandsworth, the dodgy end.”

If you thought Notting Hill was cynically contrived, Love, Actually seems to have been churned out by a software programme. Richard Curtis makes grievous bodily assault on the tear ducts, with eight feelgood climaxes devoid of anything so boring as a narrative. It's a MacFilm – the fast food of emotion. Or am I just an old cynic?

The movie opens and closes, though, at Heathrow Airport, with Hugh Grant's voiceover reassuring us of the ubiquity of warm, fuzzy feelings. The shots of emotional travellers were grabbed documentary-style. Don't worry – your furtive assignation won't be up there on the big screen. Permission was obtained from everyone who's featured.

This is a London romcom, so we get the inevitable establishing shots of the city. The galleried atrium, decked out for Christmas, is that of Whiteley’s, the vast Bayswater department store. This is also where Julia Roberts holds her photographic exhibition in Mike Nichols’ film of Closer.

The central court of Somerset House in the Strand, saw sterling service as a movie location over the years (Goldeneye, Sleepy Hollow etc) when it was a rather dull parking lot. Since the building’s renovation, it has been transformed into a pleasant fountain court and, in winter, a skating rink, which is how it appears here.

Love Actually film location: Alan Rickman buys the necklace: Selfridge’s, Oxford Street

Oxford Street, a tiresomely crowded shopping hell, which offers little more than you’d find in the average high street, only in bigger shops. Expensive to close down on a weekday, or open up on a Sunday, it”s rarely been seen on screen, except in the briefest glimpse – as under the opening credits of disco thriller Sorted – but the magic name of Richard Curtis coaxed Selfridges & Co, 400 Oxford Street, to open its doors for filming.

After meeting up with his wife Karen (Emma Thompson) at St Christopher’s Place, Harry (Alan Rickman) furtively buys a necklace for flirtatious Mia (Heike Makatsch) in the store. The shop assistant character (Rowan Atkinson), who makes such an elaborate job of wrapping the gift, was originally meant to be a recurring deus ex machina angel character (which is why he reappears with an unexplained knowing smile at the airport towards the end of the film).

One of the first great department stores, there's been a Selfridges on this site since 1909. If you find the sculptural frontage too modest, you’ll be disappointed to learn that a plan to crown the building with a gigantic tower was never realised.

Love Actually film location: Jamie discovers his girlfriend in flagrante: Blenheim Road, Turnham Green

2a Blenheim Road, Turnham Green, W4 over in West London, was home to writer Jamie Bennett (Colin Firth), where he discovers his girlfriend in flagrante with his brother before fleeing to Portugal.

The recording studio, where Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) records his cheesy Christmas record, is Westway Studios, Ladbroke Grove in Notting Hill. His record company office is unmistakably City Hall, the London Assembly Building on the South Bank alongside Tower Bridge.

Love Actually film location: Andrew Lincoln's ‘South Bank’ gallery: Great Sutton Street, Clerkenwell

The ‘South Bank’ gallery run by Mark (Andrew Lincoln) isn't on the South bank at all, of course. It was an empty office on Great Sutton Street, in Clerkenwell – which was Hugh Grant's neighbourhood in About A Boy.

Love Actually film location: Liam Neeson’s heart-to-heart: Gabriel’s Wharf

Queen’s Walk is the path running alongside the south ban of the River Thames. On Gabriel’s Wharf, in front of the Riviera Restaurant, 56 Upper Ground, you’ll find the bench on which Daniel (Liam Neeson), during a heart-to-heart chat, discovers that his distracted son (Thomas Sangster) is actually in love.

Slightly east along the walk is the Oxo Tower Wharf complex, home to Mark, where he leaves Juliet (Keira Knightley) with the wedding video. He leaves the flat from the rear entrance of the wharf building on Barge House Street, through the courtyard to Oxo Tower Wharf itself. It’s on the pier here that disgracefully ageing actor Maurice (Peter O’Toole) recites Macbeth for an unappreciative Jessie (Jodie Whittaker) in Venus.

The Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) and Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) attend a school concert at Elliott School, Pullman Gardens, Putney, southwest London.

The church in which Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) marries Juliet (Keira Knightley) to the unexpected strains of All You Need Is Love, is the Grosvenor Chapel, South Audley Street. Daniel (Liam Neeson) buries his wife at St Paulís, in Clapham, south of the Thames.

Love Actually film location: ‘the dodgy end of Wandsworth’: Poplar Road, Herne Hill

The PM searches for Natalie in ‘the dodgy end of Wandsworth’, though it's really 102 Poplar Road, Herne Hill that he eventually finds her. And, in these days of strict security, ‘10 Downing Street’ was a set built in the studio at Shepperton.

The airport from which Colin (Kris Marshall) departs to fins fulfillment in Wisconsin, is Sandown Park Racecourse in Esher, about 15 miles southwest of London, in Surrey. What is it with racecourses standing in for airports? Sandown previously stood in for ‘Johannesburg Airport’ in Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom, and ‘St Petersburg Airport’ in GoldenEye is Epsom Racecourse. The ëWisconsiní bar itself was built on the Shepperton backlot.

The radio studio, where Billy Mack reveals that his record is crap and that Britney Spears was a lousy shag, is Heat Radio, Mappin House, 4 Winsley Street, London W1.

Love Actually film location: Mark declares his love silently: St Luke’s Mews, Notting Hill

In the heart of Notting Hill, 27 St Luke’s Mews is home to newlyweds Peter and Juliet – where sadly lovestruck Mark silently declares his love with cue cards. The original script called for him to carpet the mews with rose petals – a gesture which surely would have had every female in the audience shoving a finger down her throat and gagging.

It’s in this mews, too, that Bill Murray gets mugged, all the while assuming it’s part of the ‘Theatre of Life’ experience, in Jon Amiel’s comedy thriller The Man Who Knew Too Little. And a couple of minutes away is the restaurant which became ‘The Mother Black Cap’ in Withnail & I.

And, away from London, the ‘Portuguese’ restaurant, where writer Jamie finally declares his love for Aurelia (Lucia Moniz) is Le Bar de la Marine, 15 quai de Rive Neuve, the Old Port in Marseille (tel: 91 54 95 42), in the South of France, which was also the setting for Marcel Pagnolís 1931 Marius.