When Helen Fielding runs around being chased by bobbies and a man in a gorilla suit following the book club meeting and the end of the episode, it is an homage to the UK sketch comedy The Benny Hill Show.
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She slowly starts settling in with the locals, joining Marge's book club (where author Helen Fielding makes a brief appearance) and going shopping with Ned.
Helen Fielding is an English novelist and screenwriter, best known as the creator of the fictional character Bridget Jones, a sequence of novels and films that chronicle the life of a thirtysomething singleton in London as she tries to make sense of life and love.
Her response to the African famine, Comic Relief was launched on Christmas Day 1985 from the refugee camp in Safawa, Sudan, (Helen Fielding's novel Cause Celeb, 1994, may be partially based on the launch).
The campaign was backed by Tony Blair and Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding, and organised a Wakefield Book Day in March 2007 and provided reading material for primary school leavers worth £10,000.
Helen Mirren | Helen Keller | Fielding Gray | Helen | Helen of Troy | Helen Hayes | Helen Clark | Noel Fielding | Henry Fielding | Helen Reddy | Helen Frankenthaler | Helen Hunt | Helen Humes | Helen Razer | Helen Fielding | Helen Allingham | Fielding H. Yost | Helen Storrow | Helen Shaver | Helen Caldicott | Helen Sjöholm | Helen Sharman | Helen Nicol | Helen Morgan | Helen Merrill | Helen Hay Whitney | Helen Hanft | Helen Fein | Helen Dunmore | Helen Callaghan |
Overall the novel was well received, drawing critics' comparison with Sue Townsend, Helen Fielding and Tony Parsons.
Wilhelm's area of expertise is Jane austen and her influence on Chick Lit, the genre of women's literature which emerged after the publication of Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding in 1996.
The author Helen Fielding, who later wrote the Bridget Jones novels, worked for a time as a researcher on the programme.