EastEnders' Jamie Borthwick reveals touching reason for running London Marathon in character

EastEnders actor Jamie Borthwick has revealed that he's taking part in the London Marathon as his character Jay Brown to pay tribute to his late on-screen wife Lola Pearce

EastEnders' actor Jamie Borthwick has revealed he's taking part in this year's London Marathon as his character Jay Brown to pay tribute to his on-screen late wife Lola, who passed away from a brain tumour.

The 29 year old actor, who has played Jay since 2006, left viewers heartbroken as he's been struggling to come to terms with the death of his soulmate Lola. And so in a bid to tie in the touching storyline with reality, BBC soap bosses decided to enroll Jamie into the 26 mile race as his character, alongside Emma Barton who plays Honey.

Cameras have been set up along the route which include the Cutty Sark in Greenwich, London Bridge and the finish line at the Mall. Speaking to sports presenter Gabby Logan ahead of filming, he said: "We're doing this on screen in memory of Lola, my wife who sadly passed away from a brain tumour in the storyline, so herself and Honey before she passed, put Jay up to do the marathon."

He added: "So our exec Chris Clenshaw kind of said 'well we're going to do it for real', sprung the idea on us on how do you feel about actually doing the marathon, we stupidly accepted, here we are. But we're actually, we're working today so...We've got our camera crew set up at four points, here, Cutty Sark, London Bridge and the finish line."

And Emma, who has played Honey since 2005 added: "Yeah we had a sort of meeting yesterday and it was like can you be on the left side of this area, can you be on the right side of this. It is bonkers. We're going from enjoying and running this for our charities, but it's a work day as well."

When asked if they have to run together side by side, Jamie said bosses would like them to but it's not imperative to the storyline. And it looks as though they have been taking things seriously as Emma revealed they have been training separately and occasionally together while on set. In order to stay focused, the actress is also listening to 90's rap music, Run DMC, to help get her through the race.

Jamie, is no stranger to running the London Marathon as he took part in 2019 to honour his legendary co-star Barbara Windsor, who passed away in December 2020. She was sadly diagnosed with Alzheimers disease six years earlier. Speaking about how quickly time has passed for him, Jamie said that he felt running the marathon in aid of a dementia campaign was only five months ago - but in fact it was five years ago. Instead of an eight week turn around from filming to being on screen, this particular scene will be shown in tomorrow's episode [April 22].

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