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| I'm an idiot who forgot to bring a camera so this cover will have to do |
Last Thursday was Super Thursday, a day when publishers push out all the
books they hope (fingers crossed, make a birthday wish) will be Christmas
bestsellers. There were autobiographies
galore - Jennifer Saunders, Mo Farah, Harry Redknapp, Andrew Strauss, Sharon
Osborne - and cookbooks from Rachel Khoo and Lorraine Pascale but all anyone
could talk about in the lead up to Super Thursday was our favourite granny
pants wearing lady, Bridget Jones.
I was lucky enough to see Helen Fielding on one of her promotional stops,
at the Manchester Literature Festival, talking all about the world of
Bridget. The stage of the Royal Exchange
was still set for their current production of All My Sons and
Fielding, along with Miranda Sawyer who was "in conversation with
her" (hey, that's the way they word it on the website), was sat on the
front porch, chatting in front of a packed out crowd.
Fielding told us that she was quite surprised by all the uproar surrounding
the fact that she'd killed off Mark Darcy, she couldn't believe that she
was sat in her pyjamas watching the news where they were reporting on the
crisis in Syria and then the death of Mark Darcy suddenly popped up. It was also weird for her to see her own face
staring up at her from the front page of the newspaper all because she'd killed
off a fictional character, especially as she used to be a freelance journalist
who had to follow up with The Guardian to make sure that they had got her
article on car alarms.
Sawyer asked Fielding about the killing off of Darcy and Fielding told us
how she had wanted to tell Colin Firth about it in person but they'd not found
time to meet up and so she had to phone him up and make sure that he was sitting
down so she could tell him of the death of
this person who has never even existed.
Another reason that Bridget had been in the news recently was because of
the publishing error that meant that 40 pages of David Jason's autobiography
had found their way into some copies of Bridget Jones. Did Fielding mind? Did she heck, she thought it was
"perfectly Bridget" and hopes to get her hands on some of the
copies. She thought the whole thing was
funny and hoped that no one got into trouble for the mistake.
Had she based the character of Daniel Cleaver on anyone? Well the characters in the book are often
based on bits of various different people although she did divulge that one of
the characters was named after a real life person. Mr Wallaker in the book was actually named
after a real life Mr Wallaker at Fielding's son's school. The surname was just so perfect that Fielding used it as
a placeholder name for the character and tried to come up with another, equally
appropriate surname (Mr Walloper etc) but nothing seemed to fit. By the time she was two weeks away from
the deadline, Fielding decided that she had to phone up the headmaster of the
school to check that it was OK to go ahead with the name. The head thought it was hilarious and didn't
see a problem with it but thought that she should check with Mr Wallaker
himself and so Fielding put a call through.
The real Mr Wallaker was bug hunting in the New Forest when he got the
call and also thought that it was excellent, he didn't mind one bit, and so Mr
Wallaker it remained.
Some more questions from the audience also provided some interesting
information. One lady had lived in the
same halls at uni as Fielding (St Anne's College, Oxford) and remembered her
acting performances including her Marlene Dietrich. Would Fielding ever consider acting, she was
so funny (the audience was constantly laughing during this talk) and we often see that there aren't enough funny women on our
screens? Fielding, sadly, would not. She remembered that she used to get given
parts in the University Revues which would then gradually be taken away from
her until all she ended up with was the role of mute milkmaid. She'd much rather write than act.
"How did you feel about some of the negative reaction towards Bridget Jones
and do you feel protective of her?" asked one of my fellow festival
attendees. Fielding told us that she did
feel protective of Bridget and that she couldn't believe some of the comments,
especially given that the characters are all essentially kind people. People can be mean about Bridget but she's
someone who is nice and is kind to her friends and Fielding obviously feels
that's important. She also told us that,
as a general rule, she doesn't like conflict and so has found it hard to write
dramas in the past.
And then there was probably my favourite question. What sort of books did Helen Fielding like to
read herself? I loved this question
because it tells you a lot about someone.
What does the person whose books you like reading like to read
themselves? And the answer is that
Fielding (who read English at university) mainly likes to read 19th Century
novels. She likes to read novels from
before there was such a great split between literary and popular fiction,
novelists such as Thomas Hardy, Charles Dicken and Edith Wharton, and of course
she loves Jane Austen.
And then our time was up (Fielding obviously said a lot more, but my
brain's only so big and I can't remember it all). Fielding made her way outside the theatre
where a stand had been set up for her to sign copies of her books and the queue
of audience members snaked its way round to almost the other side of the
circular theatre whilst Royal Exchange staff prepared for their next event, a talk
with Roddy Doyle. I'll post a review
once I've finished the book but if you've beaten me to it, let me know what you
think. Did you attend the talk? Or any other Manchester Literature Festival
events?
Buy Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy at Waterstones
Check out the Manchester Literature Festival
Check out the Royal Exchange
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