Bridget Jones: BBC announces new documentary presented by author Helen Fielding

‘At heart Bridget Jones was always about the gap between how we’re expected to be and how we actually are,’ said Fielding, ‘in the age of social media that gap has got horrifyingly wider’

The BBC has announced that a Bridget Jones documentary presented by author Helen Fielding will air in 2020.

Being Bridget, which will be broadcast 25 years after the iconic character was introduced, will be part of a BBC Arts year-long celebration of literature.

In the documentary, Fielding, who created the character, will look back at Bridget Jones’s cultural impact since her diary entries first appeared in newspapers, books and then films.

Bridget Jones started life as a weekly column in the pages of The Independent in 1995, when Fielding worked at the newspaper. The column chronicled the life of Jones as a thirty-something single woman in London trying to make sense of life and love.

“It’s great that Bridget Jones is resonating with the daughters of the original audience – girls in their late teens and early twenties,” said Fielding. “Even if it does make me feel like Snow White’s mother.”

She added: “At heart Bridget Jones was always about the gap between how we’re expected to be and how we actually are. In the age of social media that gap has got horrifyingly wider.

“I hope Bridget helps people to laugh and remember that being warm, funny human and flawed is OK and doesn’t require an Instagram filter.”

The documentary will include archive footage and interviews with Fielding and the friends who inspired the original characters, as well as celebrity fans playing tribute to the character.

Being Bridget will air on the BBC in 2020