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New sports biopic In the Shadows, starring Top Boy’s Jasmine Jobson, tells the incredible story of British-Somali boxer Ramla Ali, with much of it filmed at Europe’s only free boxing gym, hidden round a corner in east London.
The location: Broad Street Amateur Boxing Club, London, E1
The scene: Ramla Ali is a boxer born in Somalia whose family fled the country during the civil war, after her older brother was killed by a mortar while playing outside. They eventually arrived in east London, where Ali secretly began learning to box before turning professional and eventually becoming the first boxer to represent Somalia at the Olympics in 2021.
In new biopic In the Shadows, Ali is portrayed by Top Boy and MobLand star Jasmine Jobson, with most of its fighting scenes filmed at Broad Street Amateur Boxing Gym, an unassuming building on a leafy street in Shadwell. As director Anthony Wonke (whose other credits include documentaries Ronaldo and The Director and the Jedi) explains, this isn’t where Ali actually learned to fight, but it was perfect for the film.
‘We went to a bunch of very good-looking, very cinematic gyms,' he says. ‘I think Guy Ritchie’s used them and you see them in ads and they’re great, but they’re very familiar. I wanted to find an unknown. We stumbled across Broad Street and it changed everything. You have these vivid colours of the boxing ring, blues and reds, mixed with these dark corridors where you can kind of get lost.’
On the screen: True to the real story, In the Shadows shows Ali sneaking away from her devout Muslim family’s home to train at the gym. She meets the foreboding and complicated coach Clinton (Gershwyn Eustache Jnr), a composite of the many challenging trainers Ali grew up with. Crucially, she also meets Richard Moore (Finn Cole), a local boxing enthusiast from a sporting family whose own fighting skills never quite matched up to his love for the sport. As Ali rises through the boxing ranks, she and Moore strike up a romance. It all unfolds at Broad Street Gym, which Wonke says provided the ideal setting for Ali’s coming of age.
A lot of relationships are forged in boxing gyms
‘You really get a sense of how you can play with the psychodynamics that exist between characters,’ he says. ‘I don’t know if you know a lot of boxing gyms, but there’s always conversations going on in corners and whispers and little bits of coaching. A lot of relationships are forged.’
IRL: Broad Street Club was founded in 1886 and has used this building since 1957. It’s now the only free boxing gym in Europe, meaning its members are welcome every day of the week, just as long as they submit to its rigorous training regime. ‘It’s free, but they’ve gotta box,’ says Ray McCallum, a coach who started boxing here in 1997. ‘It’s thousand-calorie Friday today, so they’ve gotta burn off 1000 calories before they go home.’
Ali and Moore are married now and both were heavily involved in the making of the film, with Ali even acting as Jobson’s body double in a lot of the fight scenes. Wonke also found roles for a number of boxers and coaches from Broad Street, who acted as extras or sparring partners in the film. The director was unable to convince McCallum to step in front of the camera, however. ‘Ray was just a diamond,’ says Wonke. ‘One of the regrets I have in the film is trying to cast him. He just didn’t want to know.’
‘I’m not there to be pictured,’ McCallum tells me with a smile. ‘That’s no good.’ Thankfully he lets me leave without having to burn a thousand calories.
In the Shadows is in UK and Ireland cinemas Oct 30.