Step into the discreet entrance to Before The Lights in Fitzrovia and you’re transported into very welcoming lounge with artworks and a library stocked with books. They’re written by members such as Nigel Slater, who has his cookbooks on display, and those that have inspired others, such as one that the actor Jacob Anderson has written an inscription in, saying it transformed his life.
You can glimpse into a recording studio (owned by actor Dominic Cooper and his brother Nathan) decorated with more than 2,000 antique books. And you might see the actress Olivia Cooke grabbing lunch from the counter.
But this isn’t just another luvvies members’ club; slightly unbelievably, it’s a gym. One that flies below the radar (it doesn’t advertise) but is a favourite with London’s creative A-list, including actors Paapa Essiedu, James Norton and radio DJ Greg James.
The reason? Well, it has all the wellness trappings you would expect of a high-end gym: state-of-the-art equipment, a Pilates and Barre studio, infrared saunas and cold therapy ice baths, treatment rooms and luxury changing areas decked out with Earl of East products – all of which sounds par for the course for a fancy London gym. But the special sauce – the thing that attracts their loyal A-listers – is their dedication to creativity alongside working out. “We take a creative approach to working out,” says co-founder George Ashwell.
For example, members have access to the recording studio - Fiction Studios – and its technicians for sound recording for self-audition tapes (Ashwell says all first-round auditions are done by tape since Covid) and voiceovers; there is a rotating Artist in Residence who is invited to display their own work, while the lounge area doubles up as an intimate screening room for members to screen films. There’s also lots of opportunities to network, should members want, either in the lounge or in the private terrace (which has a beer tap).
Its commitment to balancing fitness and creativity means the club has cultivated a loyal band of members. The food writer Nigel Slater describes it as “exactly the club I need”; Olivia Cook says it’s “a trusted place to go when needing expert advice and training” and that the gym “has been instrumental in my physical, and subsequently, emotional wellbeing.”
Ashwell, Josh Betteridge and David Hastie all met studying Sports Rehabilitation in Bristol. When they graduated in 2011 and 2012, Betteridge and Hastie moved to Melbourne work as sports rehabilitatiors. Ashwell, meanwhile was introduced by his childhood friend, the actor Nicholas Hoult, to a trainer he met on X Men: First Class, and began working for him in June 2012. “I became the guy that they’d send all the young actors with injuries to, who couldn’t afford the expensive trainers,” he says. Those young actors are, he says, “the big guys today.”
In 2013, Betteridge and Hastie came back to London and started working with Ashwell on sets – training and rehabbing young actors.
Branching out on their own in 2020, the trio founded Before The Lights in the basement of a publishing house where “you had to walk through the little kitchen and down past the spare toilet rolls”. They soon realised there was a need for the gym-cum- creative space they were providing. “All the members would hang around in the tiny vestibule, crammed in, because they hadn’t seen each other since Venice film festival or Cannes, and needed time to catch up in a safe place. They couldn’t go outside and go for a coffee because someone would try to take pictures of them,” Ashwell says. “We offer a safe haven.”
Needing investment for a new space, the guys turned to their members. “It’s entirely funded by them, we haven’t taken outside investment,” he says. Fees are surprisingly modest for such an elite offering: at £275 per month, they are on par with Soho House. Personal training costs £100 (“We charge much more for work on film sets”) and there are currently around 180 members. “We want to keep it democratic for our younger members, while being able to afford the kind of service we want to provide,” Ashwell says.
In a creative twist, the founders – refreshingly far from gym bros – have their own podcast, Before The Lights, made in the gym’s recording studio. In it, they interview members – including a NASCAR driver and a major-league All-Star player - about landing dream jobs, challenges of juggling life in the creative world along with how they prepare mentally and physically for roles. “It’s really just the conversations we have in the gym, which we are then sending out into the world,” Ashwell says. “We get to see a different side of these people that not everyone else does, and this is a glimpse into their lives.”
