Lauren Ferdinand

Actor. @NYTofGB @rosebruford Repp’d by @Simon_How 🎭 @ProforcaTheatre Associate Artist. 🎟️The Shatter Box Sept’24

[Lauren Ferdinand @LozFerdinand]

Unreal - very proud moment for @ProforcaTheatre 🫶🏽

[Lauren Ferdinand @LozFerdinand]

@f_wardale @davidbrady83 @ProforcaTheatre @LandUTheatre Couldn’t sum it up better myself! The best time working with you, as always ⭐️

[Matthew Parker 🏳️‍🌈 (he/him) @MatthewParker75]

Lucky enough to get a sneaky peek at this STUNNING show in rehearsal today. Stellar cast, taut & exciting writing, crackling direction & a beaut of a design. Treat yourself to THE SHATTER BOX @LandUTheatre this next fortnight. You won’t regret it. Or forget it. (And that rhymed)

[Lauren Ferdinand @LozFerdinand]

Want to come and watch me in a show?🤪
Grab your tickets for The Shatter Box⬇️

[Lauren Ferdinand @LozFerdinand]

@Sanny_Rudra Well done Sanny! A great year it has been🙌🏽

[Lauren Ferdinand @LozFerdinand]

Come and see the End of the Year Show at the @LandUTheatre 🤩 @f_wardale and I will be there, in the best Christmas jumpers you’ve ever seen 🎄

[Lion & Unicorn Theatre @LandUTheatre]

Monday / Tuesday - see out the year with us for a night of theatre, music, comedy, new season's previews and a few festive surprises. Join us for the End of the Year Show:

✨ Mon 4th & Tues 5th | 7.30pm
🎟️ https://t.co/PCCGD66I8X

[Lion & Unicorn Theatre @LandUTheatre]

...and finally, @ProforcaTheatre bring a mix of the old and the new with "By Your Side" performed by @KieranlDee & "Sink, Swim, Fly" performed by Nick Hardie, followed by a special ChatGPT Xmas adventure featuring @LozFerdinand @f_wardale & @davidbrady83.

Tickets on sale now!

[Refresh Sports @Refreshsport]

It’s Christmas Ad time! 🎄

We’re delighted to see Refresh client @zharnel_hughes feature in this year’s @SportsDirectUK advert 👏

[Refresh Sports @Refreshsport]

🗞️ National Inclusion Week: Ex-footballer Alistair Patrick-Heselton wants young players to discuss mental health

Delighted to see Refresh client @APH_Inspired featured on @SkySports �🗞️ National Inclusion Week: Ex-footballer Alistair Patrick-Heselton wants young players to discuss mental health

Delighted to see Refresh client @APH_Inspired featured on @SkySports �🗞️ National Inclusion Week: Ex-footballer Alistair Patrick-Heselton wants young players to discuss mental health

Delighted to see Refresh client @APH_Inspired featured on @SkySports �🗞️ National Inclusion Week: Ex-footballer Alistair Patrick-Heselton wants young players to discuss mental health

Delighted to see Refresh client @APH_Inspired featured on @SkySports 👊

[Sanny Rudravajhala @Sanny_Rudra]

📰 I was the only journalist in the country at every stage of the UK's top men's cycle race.

Long Read: What I learned is that cycling may well be one of the best sports to cover...

It’s 11.39am on a Sunday, the heavy din of a man on a PA system accompanied by dance music fills the air and I'm standing in the middle of a road in south Manchester surrounded by professional cyclists at a start line. Behind the barriers are hundreds of people, craning to get a view of the sea of riders that are now swallowing me up. There’s an older gentleman who was in the distance, now very much in the foreground shouting 'out!' at me whilst my newfound partner in crime is asking an Olympian for a selfie. It’s all happening, all at once and there’s no turning back. Welcome to the Tour of Britain!

Why cycling? And why is it perfect for a sports journalist?

My bread and butter is football. F1 was my first love and I’ll get swept up in all the cricket, athletics, and tennis if I get the chance. I was there when Bradley Wiggins followed up his Tour de France success with Olympic Time Trial gold in 2012. I was there too as Chris Froome took on Alberto Contador up Sheffield’s unforgiving Jenkin Road (Côte de Jenkin Road as it had been renamed) when Le Tour started in the UK in 2014. But alas, I’m a lapsed fan. Lance Armstrong’s revelations with Oprah a year earlier had got the ball rolling and Team Sky’s chokehold on the sport did the rest.

Enter Netflix and a new generation of riders getting exposure to a new set of fans with Tour de France: Unchained – from the makers of F1 series Drive to Survive – and it’s got me back in the saddle.
Where could these new fans go for their fix? And who could take them along for the ride? That’s when the ‘On Yer Bike’ podcast was born. In Harriet Muckle @HarrietMuckle I got in a newbie, Katy Madgwick @writebikerepeat an expert and Red Walters @The_Redster a pro rider, each with their own perspective, leaving no-one behind.

Katy was with us remotely, Red checked in whilst competing in Europe and me and Harriet travelled across the country following every stage – bar one in Harriet’s case - and me at all of them from Goole to Felixstowe.

So, why is cycling potentially a brilliant sport to cover?

Access: You’re encouraged to talk to athletes!

The refined air of the Premier League permeates throughout football. Talking even to a fourth division manager or player can be tricky. Getting the right accreditation at the cricket can feel like you’re dealing with bouncers at your bonce and with F1, let’s not even go there!

@EddieHearn was a guest on Test Match Special over the summer and was lamenting a lack of ‘characters’ in cricket. He talked about how that side of the sport is what has made boxing, snooker, and darts so popular in the UK. Well, they exist in cycling that’s for sure. How could they not? To survive a cycling tour there’s an element of madness. How else can you justify all that pain and sacrifice to be there? And then there’s getting straight back in the saddle after an off, battered, bloodied, and bruised.

Back to that Mancunian start line and said Olympian snapped with Harriet was our great British cycling hope, the multi-discipline world champion @tompidcock. And how on Earth did we manage such a coup on or new podcast? His accompanying @INEOSGrenadiers team media officer, Hannah, just came up to us and asked, “Would you like to talk to Tom?”. No huge email chain, briefing or media scrum to contend with. And there we were, talking to our biggest British superstar and he was as typically honest and straight talking as you’d expect for a man from Yorkshire. Only fellow Yorkshireman, football manager Neil Warnock, 50 years his senior has been so honest in their conversations with me with mic in hand.

Want to talk to pretty much any of the world’s top riders? Get to the mix zone at the rider sign-on and that can be arranged, or just turn up at their team bus/camper! Especially at the Tour of Britain, which as a smaller race much more relaxed, so I'm told.

Access: In fact, anyone will talk to you!

Doing my best Martin Brundle impression on various start lines, I ended up getting into in depth conversations with the commissaires (race officials like the FIA in F1), organisers, team bosses, the Shimano guys who drive around with spare wheels and bikes – you name it, they were there and happy to talk. It was all quite surreal. Nobody blocking you off. No-one doing their best Cara Delevingne impression. Me and Harriet did a live broadcast on the start line in Tewkesbury and other than having to keep our blue media vests to hand, we were golden!

Gatekeepers and stepping in to the unknown

An Asian bloke in a bucket hat with a microphone and a woman who’s dressed ready to go on TV at a moment’s notice, walk into the cycling tent mix zone. We stand out. How was that experience? I was prepared for the worst but was pleasantly surprised.

Harriet had issues on day one convincing the young lads on the media desk that she was indeed on the list for parking; I had someone whose opening gambit like a rutting stag was, ‘How long have you been doing this?’; and there was one journo who complained our line of questioning with Wout van Aert was ‘drowning his copy’(?!) BUT… that was basically it. That was the extent of the gatekeeping we experienced over a week of ostensibly becoming cycling journalists.

The @TourofBritain organisation were happy for us to be there, helped us when we needed a few things adjusting to get better access for audio recording and all in all went out of their way to accommodate us! How often can a journalist say that at a major sports event?

Add to that energy, enthusiasm and commitment of Harriet, the wealth of knowledge and patience from Katy as she guided us across the stages, and Red’s rider input whilst out competing and I think we managed to smash those gates wide open.

And I haven’t even mentioned Dan Deakins and Anna MacEwan, two cycling journalists and super-fans who also joined us along the way, jumping in with both feet in Felixstowe!
@DanDeakins @AnnamacB

Is there any money in it?!

Ah, the million-dollar question. Well, in short, I believe so – but in testing economic times you’ve got to be creative, and we’re going to try and do that with On Yer Bike and see what happens! I’m convinced that as Netflix continues covering it, we’ll see new fans coming to the sport. The magnificent coverage from the Global Cycling Network and Eurosport mean for a modest annual outlay, you can follow pretty much any race across men’s and women’s categories. And there’s a huge number of fans on social media that love to talk cycling!!

By the final episode of our mini-series, we ended up in the commentary box in Caerphilly. Me and Harriet, over the course of a week, had gone from newbies to calling the action as it unfolded. It was only possible because the world of #cycling – from riders and teams to officials and organisers, opened their doors to us and let us step into their world. It’s exactly what you want as a broadcaster and journalist wanting to take your listeners right into the heart of the action. What a ride and we ain’t stopping now!

Get On Yer Bike and join us!
#Journalism

[Sanny Rudravajhala @Sanny_Rudra]

What’s it like as a kid going to a football academy? And what do you do if you’re their parents?!

Delighted to be present @EnglandFootball’s Football and Me with some talented youngsters!!

YouTube 🔗⬇️
#footballcoaching #southasianheritagemonth @fa @daldarroch @Refreshsport

[Lauren Ferdinand @LozFerdinand]

@APH_Inspired @QPR Well done on delivering another fantastic session 👏🏽

[Zharnel Hughes @zharnel_hughes]

God is good 🙏🏾

Beyond happy to break the British 100m record today.

Thank you to everyone for their support.

The work continues…. 💪🏾

[Refresh Sports @Refreshsport]

🚨𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁🚨

@FA_PGMOL Breaking Barriers is heading into the community, with the second in-person session since the series began taking place at Bradford City FC, on Thursday 22nd June at 18:00.

https://t.co/Hi7Nd2gBMq

[PGMO @FA_PGMOL]

PGMOL Breaking Barriers: Experiential Learning Programme https://t.co/rXWMdoMMk0

[Lauren Ferdinand @LozFerdinand]

@ProforcaTheatre @LandUTheatre @thelionunicorn @EveryTheatre @pubtheatres1 @davidbrady83 @JackAlbertCook @EmmaBurnell_ Want some silly bank hol weekend fun? Come along to #Proforca48 on Monday or Tuesday next week and find out what #LaurenFromTheFuture🔮 has in store for you…

[Refresh Sports @Refreshsport]

📍Manchester

Refresh link-up between MD @Leon_Mann , @LozFerdinand and new client @SannyR1985 👏🏽

[Lauren Ferdinand @LozFerdinand]

@SannyR1985 @Leon_Mann @SalfordUni @Refreshsport @SalfordAlumni @UoSJournalism @RadioCaroline_ @utocue @MediaCityUK @createatsalford So great to catch up today Sanny!⭐️

[Sanny Rudravajhala @Sanny_Rudra]

“I’ve got a meeting with my agent!” Surreal to say it out loud!! ✨😱😁

Really great to meet up with @Leon_Mann & @LozFerdinand at @SalfordUni today. 🙌🏾⚡️

And I’ve put together a blog post on why I’ve teamed up with @Refreshsport. 🔗⬇️

#journalism #broadcasting #freelance

[Leon Mann MBE @Leon_Mann]

Team Refresh up in Manchester📍

Super to attend the @includesummit and see so many brilliant people.

Absolutely buzzing to see @wearebcoms young leaders smashing it with the content.

A good day 👊🏽