Latest news with #BBCLondon.
BBC News
26-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
London Marathon 2025: Jeanne Cocker ran in the first marathon
In the Spring of 1981, Jeanne Coker pinned a Union Jack on herself and joined more than 6,000 fellow runners in the first London the inaugural marathon, just 4% of the competitors were women – compared with an expected 45% in this Sunday's race – but had it began a decade sooner, Jeanne would have been banned from Britain, women were banned from competing in running road races any longer than 6km, which is less than four miles, until who is from Wembley, was 44 when she ran in the first London Marathon and only about one of 300 women to sign up. It was also her first marathon, completing the 26.2-mile (42.2 km) course in four hours and eight minutes. "The whole thing was about women and men are being treated differently," Jeanne told BBC London."They had forgotten there were women in the race and when we got to Charing Cross they hadn't unlocked the women's toilets. That is a big issue before a race!" Jeanne started running when she went to London to go to university. She was living in Hampstead at the time and met with some runners from Highgate."I started running for fitness, because I was a netballer," she said."If you were of a standard, most women of my generation were in netball or a hockey player, there wasn't anything else because you weren't allowed to run on the roads for quite a long while."She said, at the time, "annoyed wasn't a strong enough word" to describe how she felt about being told women couldn't do the same things a man could do. "If you're stopping somebody from doing something because of their gender, that's a nonsense," she said."I've worked a lot to get things changed for women."One year, we decided that we were going to challenge what was going on, so 10 of us went to a different 10-mile road race over the Easter weekend."We said that if anybody got caught, or banned for running on a road, we would all stand up and be counted and there would be others who would do the same for us."But nothing happened because nobody believed in this rule." It is now 50 years since the UK ban on female marathon runners participating in races was said the public perception of men and women running as equals in the first London Marathon in 1981 was of "togetherness"."I never met any man who expressed being against women running with men. We had tremendous support. "Men didn't know how to change the rules and neither did we," she added."I just wanted to run the first London Marathon, the fact that I was a woman didn't enter my head, simply that I'm a runner."Jeanne described the crowds supporting the runners on the day as "great"."I'm very proud to have been part of the first London Marathon," she said."I wish I could do it again, it was a great thing to have done."
BBC News
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Wicked: Behind the scenes at Sky Studios Elstree
Film and high-end TV production spend in the UK was £5.6bn last year - and the biggest film was Wicked, made at Sky Studios Elstree in managing director of the studios, Noel Tovey, says it has been "a bit of a rollercoaster" with back-to-back films made here since it opened in February 2023 - the latest facility in the rapid studio expansion around says the film industry has had challenges, among them Hollywood industrial action and budget cuts to streaming services, but there's been a "slow recovery through 2024".In terms of how the industry is benefiting the local area, Sky says payroll postcodes on recent productions demonstrate that about a quarter of the production crews live within a 10-mile radius of Sky Studios Elstree. Underneath the gleaming silver arch and around the freshly landscaped courtyard, inside Sky Studios Elstree there is industrious production bell signalling the start and end of takes rings out repeatedly. Crew members drift out of the sound stages, wearing overalls or hi-vis tabards. There has been constant film production here since the studios opened in February 2023, with the cameras rolling on Wicked before the building was even noise of the mini-forklift trucks and golf buggies moving busily around the site is completely silenced as the doors shut on the 25,000sq ft (2,320sq m) Sound Stage scene in Wicked for the song Dancing Through Life, with its spinning library and flying books, was filmed here. "Every costume and every film set, all the props, all the special effects rigs, everything was made here in the studio," Tovey tells BBC London."To see the finished result on the big screen, and for it to win awards, has been the icing on the cake."Wicked, which had the biggest opening for a musical adaptation of a stage show, won two Academy Awards at this year's Oscars, including for Best Production Design, accepted by Londoner, Nathan Crowley - plaudits that emphasise the quality of the crews working in film around London."A mile down the road is Elstree Studios; it's celebrating its 100th year this year and that just shows there are generations of crew that have grown up in this area," Tovey says. Tax breaks make the Home Counties an attractive place to make film and high-end TV but there are other elements that have to come together, Tovey says."Being in the right place is crucial - for the crew base, for the supply chain, for easy access to central London and transport links - but also to have the room to build a facility of this scale." Despite the optimistic message coming from Sky Studios Elstree, it has been a a punishing few years for the post-Covid spending spree in high-end TV stalled - shows made in the UK saw a £598m spend last year, 22% down on 2023, as streaming platforms cut back their budgets, while UK box office takings are still 22% below their 2019 US industrial action had some impact in the UK. Production on Wicked was halted 10 days before filming was complete. For freelancers that make up the majority of the workforce, there is significant job insecurity. But that doesn't stop young people in Borehamwood wanting to get into the Byrne is on a 12-month paid traineeship at Sky Studios Elstree. "I think for so many people it feels like something really cool that you'd love to do but you have no clue how you'd actually get there yourself," she Future Talent Programme is in its third year and of the 32 trainees taken on so far, a large proportion live locally - and 70% have gone on to work in the Mistry is an alumna. "I was lucky enough to be a runner on set [on Wicked] so I got to see Cynthia [Erivo] singing Defying Gravity whilst being harnessed in this contraption that was flipping her upside down and doing a loop-the-loop in the air on the broomstick," she Studios Elstree is hoping that the sequel, Wicked: For Good, which is due to be released in November, will contribute to the continuing recovery of the UK film industry.
