RIP Dame Gillian Lynne

Sorry, I have never heard of her.

I saw a programme about her a couple of years ago. At 87 or something she was amazingly supple and active and as nonnie says, she made a great contribution to the arts and ballet in particular.

Charley she was a wonderful ballet dancer and then had a great career choreographing shows like Cats and Phantom. Couple of years ago the New London Theatre was renamed The Gillian Lynne in her honour, the first London theatre to be named after a woman other than a royal.

She remained fit and healthy well into her 80s and even produced a fitness video for older people.

I think people who were Rollers fans would disagree,they probably hadn't heard of Gillian Lynn but there were millions of Bay City Rollers fans here and worldwide .Popular culture isn't any less worthy .

paddy I think GL's legacy will live a lot longer than BCR's. No disrespect to them though, I just think the BBC got it wrong.

I agree Paddyann, far more people countrywide would have known of Bay City Rollers than a choreographer

There's just been a piece about Gillian Lynn on the lunchtime news.

TBH I haven't heard of either of them.

BBC have just redeemed themselves on World at One.

Does popular music count as ‘the Arts’?
Nonnie didn’t say the Bay City Rollers were less worthy than Gillian Lynne, only that she thought she had made a greater impact on the Arts, and having died, she deserved a mention on the BBC news as much as a member of the Bay City Rollers.
It depends how you measure worth - is it the amount of enjoyment or knowledge someone has given to a greater number of people, or the originality of thought and ideas that they have brought to their particular sphere?

Is someone who has taught A level physics to many thousands of students and even managed to get some of them to enjoy the subject, more or less worthy than the late Professor Stephen Hawking, for example?

Never heard of the lady myself

Yes, the BBC should mention equally any death of a significant person. Yes, in my opinion you are correct that she contributed more over her wonderful career.
The BBC radio 4 have a strange knack of mentioning some of the deaths of that day but not all. They often add on someone else in a later news bulletin.
Gillian Lynne
seems to have contributed far more over a sustained career than the Bay City Roller. However I suspect not as many will instantly realise who she is.

As an aside.
Unfortunately every time someone mentions Bay City Rollers this is what comes to my mind, it is about the brother of said deceased Alan Longmuir.

Derek Longmuir.
He appeared on each of the band's nine studio albums through to 1981. He retired from the music industry in the early 1980s and trained as a nurse working at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

In In 2000, Derek Longmuir was sentenced to 300 hours' community service after admitting possessing child pornography.[1] Due to the controversy, he was fired from his job at the Infirmary although he was later readmitted to the nursing register. Despite his guilty plea, he maintained that the offending materials did not belong to him but were left behind by an acquaintance.
Longmuir said he pleaded guilty in the hope of avoiding a "media circus".

300 hours? Disgraceful sentencing.

Wasn't there a lot about Gillian Lynne on the Today programme on R4 this morning? Certainly more than on the Bay City Roller.

gmelon what on earth does his brothers criminal record have to do with him? He was in a very successful band loved worldwide.I'm sure even the most feted of people involved in the "arts" have family who do bad things.I was never a Rollers fan but my SIL went the whole half mast trousers and tartan everything route.I think millions will mourn HIS passing .And he is no less worthy of that than Ms Lynn ... in her own fanbase

I remember Gillian Lynne from my ballet-mad childhood in the late ‘40s and the 1950s. To me she was a ballerina. No Margot Fonteyn, but a name I knew nevertheless. I was mildly shocked when she started choreographing musicals and not proper ballets!

I have not connected the brothers or tainted Alan in any way.

I have said, as an aside, what unfortunately comes to my mind

As an aside to the OP and to Alan Longmuir's death.

Both Alan and Derek Longmuir were Bay City Rollers.
That is why any mention of the group is overshadowed for me by the criminal conviction of a member.

Overall this is a thread about fairness in reporting death of public figures, my comment was an aside to the thread. I addressed the OP in my first paragraph/s.

I heard the announcement of Gillian Lynne's death very early this morning, on the World News, but I am sure it was discussed on the Today programme as there were bursts of music from 'Phantom' and 'Cats'.
I remember the Bay City Rollers, but have never heard of the man who died. I thought they were awful then and still do, but it explains the (sorry, in my opinion, dreadful) music being played during 'Today'. Each to his own.