FILM and television companies are being urged to look at the Malvern Hills as a location for productions.

Worcestershire County Council and film and television agency Screen West Midlands is launching a booklet for film producers on Monday in a bid to bring more of them to Worcestershire.

Alexandra Heybourne, spokesman for the agency, said: "The brochure features the most beautiful and interesting locations in the county. We are trying to make film producers reassess what Worcestershire has to offer for them. The county has such a diversity of location, from the urban areas of Worcester and Redditch to the beauty of the Malvern Hills.

"We originally produced a smaller brochure, like a teaser for film producers to see the range of locations on offer, but we had such an overwhelming response that we decided to enlarge it and launch it officially."

Filming in the local area has been varied, ranging from a remake of the classic Tom Jones, partly filmed at Upton-upon-Severn, to the first appearance of Tom Baker as Dr Who, at the BBC Engineers Training Centre near Evesham in 1974.

Perhaps the best known is Ken Russell's film about Elgar, shot around the Malvern Hills and broadcast on the BBC in Novem-ber 1962.

The BBC also aired 38 episodes of the Survivors from 1975, the adventures of the few survivors of a deadly plague which wiped out 99 per cent of the population.

Shooting was done at a number of locations, including Great Malvern station, Clenchers Mill Ford near Bromsberrow, the Gullet Quarry, Brockhampton Court near Bromyard, Ripple and Hollybush Quarry.

The Worcestershire-based series Noah's Ark was also shot locally and across the border, Eastnor Castle has been a popular location, with the likes of Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Box of Delights and One More Time, a 1970 film starring Sammy Davis Jnr and directed by Jerry Lewis.

The head of drama for the BBC, Trevor West, and Andrew Cook, film and television location manager, will be at the launch.