TV soap actors Emma Barton and Jamie Borthwick will be running London Marathon on Sunday 21 April for the second time – but this year it's all part of the EastEnders plot.
The duo will be taking part as their on-screen selves, Honey Mitchell and Jay Brown, for a special episode of the soap in which they run the 2024 London Marathon in memory of Jay’s wife, Lola Pearce, who died of a brain tumour in a storyline from 2023.
Viewers of the TV soap have been watching the pair train for the marathon in recent episodes. Barton and Borthwick will run parts of the event in character to film scenes live from the route on the day.
The soap’s camera crew will be at the race filming at Cutty Sark (6 miles), Tower Bridge (13 miles) and the start and finish lines, before sprinting through edits to slot these scenes into Monday night’s episode.
The pair are both running for charities close to their hearts. Borthwick will run for Prostate Cancer UK in honour of his dad, uncle and cousin, who have all been diagnosed in the past two years, but thankfully caught it early enough to treat. Barton, meanwhile, is running for Children in Need.
She said: ‘EastEnders is so synonymous with London, and it will be a first time for me as an actor that I’ll be able to break that fourth wall as Jamie and I act out our scenes among the other runners as we race across the capital in this landmark event. I can’t wait!’
Both are no strangers to physical activity on camera, having been contestants on Strictly Come Dancing – Barton was a runner-up in 2019 and Borthwick won the 2023 competition. Though Borthwick admits he hasn’t trained as strategically as Barton and worries about injuries in his knees and shins, which he says are ‘just not made for running any more’.
They’ve got to make it to the filming spots together, but will they run the whole way side-by-side? Borthwick reckons his co-star could leave him behind. ‘I said, “Look, Em, if you find yourself shooting off and I’m crawling behind you, don’t wait for me. You go and get it done and do what you need to do.” We might stay together the whole way, we might not – who knows?’
