How historic Ealing Studios is hoping to regain ground with £20m revamp

Between the late 1930s and mid-50s, Ealing produced famous Ealing comedies such as The Ladykillers. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

The first time film-maker Barnaby Thompson visited Ealing Studios it was to shoot Victoria Beckham, who at the time was better known globally as Posh Spice, being unceremoniously plunged underwater.

“It was 1997, we were making Spice World and there was a sequence where Posh Spice got thrown into the Thames,” says Thompson, whose film credits include Wayne’s World, the remake of St Trinian’s and an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband. “We have a tank at Ealing so we shot Posh being thrown into the tank. It was the first time I had been on that hallowed ground.”