Click for Source Image By Graeme Stirling
Just when you thought you were safe, Helen Fielding strikes again. Should you be unfamiliar with the author, you’ll doubtlessly have heard of her protagonist, Bridget Jones. In fact, if her social media-embracing publishers get their way, you’ll be hearing that name a lot more in the coming days.
Just when you thought you were safe, Helen Fielding strikes again. Should you be unfamiliar with the author, you’ll doubtlessly have heard of her protagonist, Bridget Jones. In fact, if her social media-embracing publishers get their way, you’ll be hearing that name a lot more in the coming days.
Click for Source Image Bridget Jones first emerged as a burgeoning fixture on the mainstream fiction scene almost twenty years ago – yes, that is downright terrifying – not in a novel but in the pages of The Independent. Fielding was working at the paper when the incumbent features editor offered her the chance to write a lifestyle column for young, professional women in London. Rather than sit down and scribble advice about urban life, Fielding opted for a diary penned from the point of view of her now famous fictional heroine, a hopeless, slapdash stereotype of a 90's thirty-something who just can’t get things in order. Published every Wednesday, the narrative lasted for three years before hopping over to The Daily Telegraph and, in the interim, proved popular enough to be turned into a novel in 1996. Enter the TV adaptation that no Christmas season audience can escape and Bridget Jones became a household name. It’s only logical, then, that her publicists want to keep it that way.
The third instalment in the series, Mad About the Boy, was something of a departure from the others: the illustrious Jones had turned 51, was experimenting with a latter-middle-aged person’s grasp of social media and gadgetry, and, perhaps most significantly, Mark Darcy was dead and gone and had left behind two children.
Despite strong sales, the book is unlikely to see itself adapted to the screen alongside the first two entries. For whatever reason, studios have turned a blind eye to the book and are instead said to be working on an original follow-up based on one of Fielding’s screenplays, titled Bridget Jones’ Baby (though ongoing production has not been confirmed).
Meanwhile, however, the novel will be hitting the shelves for a second time. Tomorrow sees the release of the paperback edition of Mad About the Boy, and, to celebrate this and to shift as many copies as possible, the publishers have put together a marketing campaign that Fielding’s ageing, text-mastering protagonist would surely be impressed by. In the spirit of urban lifestyle (presumably), customers are being encouraged to order coffees under the name Bridget, prompting artistic baristas everywhere to shout her name over the smog and rattle of espresso machines. Anyone who posts a photo of a Bridget-marked coffee cup on Twitter, accompanied by the hashtag #IAmBridget, will be entered into a contest for a £250 Selfridges voucher. So, if you need some new high-end threads or household appliances, be sure to go helpfully incognito on your morning latte run.
The third instalment in the series, Mad About the Boy, was something of a departure from the others: the illustrious Jones had turned 51, was experimenting with a latter-middle-aged person’s grasp of social media and gadgetry, and, perhaps most significantly, Mark Darcy was dead and gone and had left behind two children.
Despite strong sales, the book is unlikely to see itself adapted to the screen alongside the first two entries. For whatever reason, studios have turned a blind eye to the book and are instead said to be working on an original follow-up based on one of Fielding’s screenplays, titled Bridget Jones’ Baby (though ongoing production has not been confirmed).
Meanwhile, however, the novel will be hitting the shelves for a second time. Tomorrow sees the release of the paperback edition of Mad About the Boy, and, to celebrate this and to shift as many copies as possible, the publishers have put together a marketing campaign that Fielding’s ageing, text-mastering protagonist would surely be impressed by. In the spirit of urban lifestyle (presumably), customers are being encouraged to order coffees under the name Bridget, prompting artistic baristas everywhere to shout her name over the smog and rattle of espresso machines. Anyone who posts a photo of a Bridget-marked coffee cup on Twitter, accompanied by the hashtag #IAmBridget, will be entered into a contest for a £250 Selfridges voucher. So, if you need some new high-end threads or household appliances, be sure to go helpfully incognito on your morning latte run.
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