‘The house was small, the life was big’: how Amy Winehouse’s homes were recreated for Back to Black

Set designers Katie Spencer and Sarah Greenwood went from Barbie to the darker world of the Amy Winehouse biopic. They explain how even a Smeg fridge evokes the singer’s dreams

Imagine someone coming into your bedroom, taking a look around and then recreating it in meticulous detail: they would end up telling your story without ever saying a word.

That was the aim of the set designers for the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black, where her various homes feel as integral as Marisa Abela’s detailed study of her vocals and movements. Back to Black is a strange and sanitised telling of Amy Winehouse’s life – and many have criticised it – but the film happens in a very real world. The Camden of the early 00s pulses and buzzes, but it is Winehouse’s own spaces, recreated by set design team Katie Spencer (set decorator) and Sarah Greenwood (production designer), that flesh out the story beyond her voice and her addictions.