To wish Helen Fielding would leave Bridget Jones alone

[Coatonarack]

I love Bridget. The books are hilarious and the first film was a gem. But the second film was a pastiche and the IMDB accounts of the third film sounded dire. I started off reading her Daily Tel column again, but stopped when she described Bridget cheating on Mark with Daniel in a sordid encounter behind the recycling bins. And now Helen is writing the third book.

Bridget Jones should be left alone. The last film came out nearly 10 years ago. It's over. Don't ruin it. There's nowhere you can take this.

I know, I know, she's not real. But still.....

[NicknameTaken]

I enjoyed the original newspaper articles, including the ones where BJ has a baby and is originally not sure who is the father, Mark D'Arcy or Daniel.

Book 2 and Film 2 were damaged by the pointless inclusion of the Thailand trip. Took away from the jokey realism. I'm looking forward to reading about BJ dealing with motherhood. I expect lots of comedy based around yummy mummy v. slummy mummy types (actually, that is starting to sound a bit dated even as I write it, but I don't care if it's not cutting edge once it's funny) .

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

The thailand trip was in the columns though. It was quite tense at the time! Well. It was more interesting than some of the things in the paper anyway.

Book 2 didn't really make sense in the footballing bits because they changed the tournament and there just wasn't as much a sense of injustice about our exit, or expectation about our performance beforehand, compared to France 98.

At the time, I thought the interview with Colin Firth in the magazine was the funniest thing I had ever read (obviously on mature reflection it's probably not). It's such a shame they couldn't manage to work it into the film.

[MarmaladeTwatkins]

RZ deffo wasn't fat in BJ. Remember the scene where she did the embarrassing public speaking at the launch of kafka's Motorbike and she had a satin pencil dress on?! She was slim.

I love BJ and the sequel so up yours. All of you. Up your bums.

[FloatyBeatie]

Oh yes, I love that Firth interview too. I do still think it is in my top 10 funniest bits of a novel.

And I actually think it is very helpful to read Pride and Prejudice whilst keeping in mind the acting note Firth talks of in that scene -- 'Imagine Mr Darcy has an erection.' Last time I read P&P he had one throughout.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Floaty God yes. From the minute he claps eyes on Lizzie. It's the same watching the telly too. I've never watched the stupid film with the wrong cast so I have no idea if that approach would work with it - I'm sure not.

The Mr Darcy! Mr Darcy! stuff worked better when reading the columns, I think, because it went on for weeks, whereas when you read the book it's over in not very many minutes (unless you read the books over and over. Which, obviously, I have done).

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

DD1 read the books, and the columns (I have them all on my computer) and saw the films recently. It was a real bonding process.

[NicknameTaken]

For some reason that line in the Firth interview about "spawning a new genre" still makes me giggle.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

When I read the interview in the magazine, I was on a train and I was literally howling with laughter. There were Looks.

It was such a happy time, really.

[FloatyBeatie]

I think that the only time that I have done as much out-loud guffawing at a novel as I did for that Firth interview was when I was reading a passage in mark haddon's A Spot of Bother. That was a fairly detailed gay sex scene in which one of the parties was hungover and vomiting , and my small children kept asking me to share the story with them.

[HappyAsEyeAm]

I loved both books. I have read and re=read countless times. I read the second one during my gap year in Australia, and I was howling with laughter, and getting very odd looks. But I just couldn't stop.

I thought the films were ok. Just ok. I love the Mr Darcy references in the books and its such a shame that they wouldn't have worked in the films. Understandable, but a shame.

I have no desire to see Bridget resurrected though. She was perfect in rhe 90s and should stay perfect. I do think too that RZ played her really well. I am a size 12, and I am just gobsmacked that someone my size in a film looks so relatively large compared to the other actors (men and women). Its such a distorted sense of reality.