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| Youth: The Truth About The Laville Agency and Its London Filming Location. |
The Laville Agency in HBO’s Youth is fictional, but the world around it is rooted in the real literary industry. The agency gives Alex a suitably complicated place to spend her working life, juggling writers, books, deadlines and the sort of professional problems that apparently become even more complicated when you are trying to work out what to do with your own life.
Created by Sharon Horgan and Sarah Simmonds for the series, The Laville Agency was not lifted from a particular real-world literary agency or publishing company. It exists specifically for Youth, giving Alex a workplace that allows the series to explore both the publishing business and the pressures surrounding a woman approaching 50.
Interestingly, the agency was not part of the earliest version of the idea. Horgan had been developing Alex as a character for several years before settling on her profession. The literary agency arrived later, once the creators realised that Alex needed a workplace that could naturally connect her personal and professional lives.
That decision makes rather a lot of sense. Alex spends her working days dealing with other people's stories, which gives Youth an amusingly appropriate setup for a character who has rather neglected her own. She can analyse a manuscript to death while apparently finding her own life considerably harder to edit. There is something almost painfully fitting about that.
Horgan's own experience also helped shape the fictional workplace. Before Youth, she had spent around two decades dealing with talent agents, giving her some familiarity with the machinery surrounding creative careers. The show therefore uses The Laville Agency not as a documentary-style recreation of publishing, but as a believable fictional environment where professional ambition, family obligations and middle age can collide.
The creators also researched the contemporary literary scene while developing the series. Horgan attended a women's literary awards event and looked at changing trends in publishing, including “romantasy”, the increasingly popular blend of romance and fantasy. That influence finds its way into Youth, helping the agency feel connected to the books and conversations occupying the publishing world rather than existing in some strangely sealed television universe.
The choice of a literary agency is particularly useful because publishing can be both glamorous and remarkably ordinary. There are books, authors and big ideas, but there are also meetings, negotiations, office politics and plenty of staring at documents. Youth appears interested in that less polished side of the business, rather than turning every publishing professional into a mysterious genius who spends the day drinking coffee beside a window.
The Laville Agency also gives the series a distinctly female perspective on professional life. Alex is not simply dealing with the demands of her job; she is attempting to maintain a career while navigating responsibilities outside the office. That tension sits at the heart of the fictional agency and helps explain why the workplace matters to the story beyond simply giving Alex somewhere to sit between scenes.
There is another reason The Laville Agency looks convincing: the building used for it is real. The production transforms London's Old Sessions House at 22 Clerkenwell Green into the agency's fictional headquarters. The historic setting gives the workplace an established, slightly grand appearance that would be difficult to fake convincingly on a modest office set.
Old Sessions House, also known as Middlesex Sessions House, dates back to the late 18th century and has an especially appropriate literary connection of its own. The building features prominently in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, giving Youth's fictional book agency an amusing connection to one of London's most recognisable literary figures. The building has also appeared in other screen productions, including I Believe in You and Love, Honor and Obey.
So while The Laville Agency is not based on a particular real book agency, its details are not completely detached from reality either. Horgan and Simmonds drew on research, industry experience and contemporary publishing culture to create a workplace that feels plausible without being a disguised version of an existing company.
Making The Laville Agency fictional was probably the smarter creative choice. A real agency would immediately bring unnecessary baggage, comparisons and questions about who inspired which character. By inventing Laville, Youth can borrow the recognisable frustrations of publishing without having to behave like a corporate brochure for the industry.
More importantly, the agency works because it reflects Alex herself: professional on the surface, slightly chaotic underneath, and constantly surrounded by other people's stories while struggling to make sense of her own. The historic London setting is another nice touch, because apparently even a fictional literary office needs an impressive building to remind everyone that books are serious business. It also gives the series a sense of place without making the setting feel artificially designed for television.
Ultimately, The Laville Agency is made up for Youth, even if the professional world surrounding it has plenty of real-life inspiration behind the scenes. The building is genuine, the literary references are genuine, and the workplace pressures are recognisable, but Laville itself belongs to Alex's fictional world. And perhaps that is the most interesting part: would you actually want to work at The Laville Agency, or does Alex's office make publishing look like one long meeting you would rather escape?