Does anyone know the name and location of the pub used at the beginning of the Alchemy video?
The one the band is playing pool in. Does it still exist?
Pondy
This answer comes very very late. sorry for that.
As you might know, I wrote a book about places related to the DS and MK songs and history (looks at my signature for the link) and I'm currently writing the second edition with many many more and new information, and there is something about this I found out...
Someone in facebook mentioned that it was a pub called "Birds Nest" in Deptford, as it looks like MK said it in a TV interview around the time Alchemy was released. That same pub is suspicious, as it's close to the Farrer House, of being the one where the brothers Knopfler heard the sultans of swing, but that's only a theory. Actually, the DS members had a moment in the band history there, as it's there where they found out that Charlie Gillett put his Sultans demo on the radio, after they helped a friend to move furnitures. By that time, the birds nest pub was called the oxford arms.
https://goo.gl/maps/hVPR9Zj3iZxI asked John Illsley if the birds nest was the pub where they filmed the scenes of the band playing pool and he answered me that no, that the pub was one called Greyhound in Fullam Road, a 10 minutes walk from the Hammersmith Odeon. Nowadays is called Southern Bell.
https://goo.gl/maps/5j9q17h5NF22If anyone has more information, please share. If not, I hope you enjoy this little investigation.