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It’s farewell to bustling Borough, hello to leafy Hampstead for Bridget Jones and her two sprogs, Billy and Mabel, in the delightful, fourth-in-the-series sequel Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.
Loads has changed since 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby: Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy is now a much-mourned absence after his death in Somalia, and the prospect of new romantic entanglements – in the studly shape of Leo Woodall’s twentysomething Roxster and Chiwitel Ejiofor’s head teacher Mr Wallaker – is almost as challenging for the now fifty-something Bridget as remembering her Netflix password. Heck, even the ciggies have gone (v v tough).
The movie’s biggest change, though, is a subtler one. Under the eye of new director Michael Morris and via a screenplay co-written by Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding, Mad About the Boy shifts the whole geographic locus of the series. Where? Well, about a £25 cab fare northwest from Southwark, once home to younger Bridge’s cosy flat, to a des res in Hampstead round the corner from her kids’ school.
Morris is braced for the backlash from salty south Londoners. ‘I'm sure there will be hell to pay,’ he jokes. ‘But anyone who is a Borough loyalist, they've moved out, let's be honest. Where does he think a young Bridget live now? ‘Peckham, probably.’
Where was Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy filmed?
Inspired by films like Manhattan, the romantic-comedy is a true love letter to the city. ‘London opened its arms for Bridget Jones,’ says Morris. ‘I wanted this Bridget movie to be a “real-life” romcom, and for [the city] to look like the London that I know.’
He talks Time Out through the film’s key locations.
Bridget’s house – Hampstead
‘It was fabulous shooting in Hampstead. Everywhere you look is beautiful,’ he says of the location of Bridget’s house and her kids’ school. ‘If you're a Hampstead resident, you might be cursing the name of the film, because we were really present and one thing that Hampstead doesn't have is wide streets,’ he adds. ‘I apologise! It was done with love.’
The spoken word gig – The Hope & Anchor, Hammersmith
Hugh Grant’s Daniel Cleaver is so very back. Far too old to still be a philandering rogue, but being one anyway, we meet Bridget’s old flame stirring things up at his younger girlfriend’s spoken word gig. The scene was filmed in the Hope & Anchor pub in Hammersmith. ‘It has a perfectly preserved vintage wood-panelled bar, straight out of the 1920s or 1930s,’ says Morris. ‘My understanding is that it’s not open to the public but the owner occasionally hosts really great-looking jazz nights there.’
Bridget’s tree climb – Hampstead Heath
A meet cute 12 feet up, Bridget crosses paths – okay, branches – with Leo Woodall’s Roxster when she and her children climb an old oak on Hampstead Heath. ‘We had to get special permission from the Hampstead Park Service,’ says Morris of the set-up. ‘We ended up using a really wonderful hearty oak tree entirely capable of supporting two children and Renée, although via movie magic we had to add low branches to it [for the scene].
Bridget and Roxster’s first date – Borough Market and Portobello Road
Bridget may have left Borough but Borough hasn’t left her. Her first date with Roxster has the pair wandering through Borough Market where he innocently asks if she knows the area. ‘I wanted to echo the shot in the first film where Bridget is in her bunny costume walking through a deserted Borough Market,’ says Morris. ‘We showed up and it was, like: “This place is never deserted!” You almost can’t do anything there. We managed to [get the shot] through the brilliance of our location department.’
Borough Market is never deserted!
The mid-screen cut to an elegant bar – actually Portobello’s Electric Dinner – was one of the movie’s few cheats on London geography. ‘I've always really liked the look of the Electric Diner – the barrel vaults are really visual and I wanted them to sit at the bar and have depth on both sides. But there is a really interesting little bar in Borough, The Sheaf, that has a vaulted structure, so I felt [the cheat] was okay.’
The falling-in-love montage – Hertford Union Canal in Hackney Wick
‘Bridget makes her first ever foray to the hipster east when Roxster gives her a tour of his Hackney haunts. ‘Terrifying’ is Morris’s description of canal-side filming, with electric bikes flying through set-ups as the crew shot together the loved-up montage. ‘Our second ADs would be shouting: “We're shooting, we're shooting!”,’ he remembers, ‘and whooooosh, they’d zoom past’.
The pub scenes – The Old Queen’s Head on Essex Road and The Spaniards Inn, Hampstead
Hampstead’s venerable (and haunted) The Spaniards Inn is mentioned in The Pickwick Papers and Bram Stoker’s Dracula but it’s rarely appeared on screen. Such is Bridget Jones’s pull, though, that the 16th century pub opened its doors to Mad About a Boy for a wintry scene at the end of the film.
An early scene in which Bridget heads out with Shazzer and the gang was filmed at the Old Queens Head on Essex Road. ‘It's extraordinary inside,’ says Morris. ‘We shot at night and we were there until 5am. I think we used at least one of their bar staff.’
So in the famously Anglophile Renée Zellweger a pub lover? ‘I don't know,’ demurs Morris, ‘but she's a real Londoner. They sent a fancy car and driver to meet her at Heathrow and she was like: ‘Oh, I'm on the tube.”’
The breakfast TV scenes – Television Centre, Shepherd’s Bush
‘We shot Bridget’s actual arrival at work at Moor House (in the City), but the actual work [scenes were filmed] at BBC Television Centre at Shepherd's Bush,’ says Morris.
Bridget’s commute to work – Tower Bridge
Mad About a Boy boasts two shots of Bridget power-walking across a radiant Tower Bridge surrounded by fellow commuters. ‘We had the run of Tower Bridge for two hours on a Sunday morning,’ remembers Morris, ‘with hundreds of [background actors] crossing the bridge, and all of our cars and buses. The sun just pinged it.’
The swimming pool scene – Petersham House, Richmond
At a garden party attended by Bridget and her pals, a wet and tousled Roxster gallantly rescues a dog from a swimming pool. The pool – and party – were filmed at Richmond’s Petersham House. ‘It took a lot of looking,’ says Morris. ‘There's not that many outdoor swimming pools in London, and usually when you find them, they're often tucked into the corner of a property.’
The house will open to the public for a day in April. ‘Go,’ advises the director. ‘Everything about that place is ridiculous.’
📍Petersham House is open to the public on April 13, 2025
The outward bound trip – The Lake District, Cumbria
Bridget nobly(-ish) offers to help Mr Wallaker supervise the school kids on a weekend’s outward bound trip to the Lake District. To follow in their footsteps, head for Thirlmere and specifically Steel End Road where the glorious valley backdrops were filmed. Surprisingly, the shelter in which they hole up for the night is a real place rather than a soundstage: Old Brandlehow Barn near Derwentwater.
📍Here’s how to find Old Brandlehow Barn
Bridget and Roxster’s second dinner date – La Cage Imaginaire, Hampstead
A tiny French brasserie on Hampstead’s gorgeous Flask Walk, La Cage Imaginaire hosts another dating scene in the movie. ‘I'm so charmed by that little restaurant,’ says Morris. ‘It's so romantic and lovely. I hope [the film] is good for them, because it's a beautiful restaurant.’
📍Book a table at La Cage Imaginaire
Bobby’s school concert – Normansfield Theatre, Teddington
‘It's an extraordinary discovery, a gorgeous space,’ says Morris of a west London theatre that doubles up as a school hall, ‘Our legendary production designer Kave Quinn (Trainspotting) accentuated what that place had – it has this gorgeous wooden charm to it.’
📍Here’s how to visit Normansfield Theatre
Read Time Out’s review of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.
The 70 best romcoms of all time.