Gemma Jones in Bridget Jones s Diary
Credit: LANDMARK MEDIA / Alamy Stock Photo
Euphoria rings in her voice before Gemma Jones breaks off to explain why. “I’m feeling slightly hysterical this morning”, she admits. “I’ve had my first coronavirus inoculation and I’m so relieved. I live near the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead and every time I left the house I felt I was playing Russian roulette. Now I can go to the corner shop without fear. I don’t have to jump out of the way if people jog by, puffing and blowing.”
Jones, a much-loved actor of the unstarry variety, is 78, a fact she finds astonishing. She made her name as Louisa Trotter, the Cockney cook-turned high-class hotelier in the Seventies television hit The Duchess of Duke Street but is best known now as Bridget’s meddling mother in the Bridget Jones films – or as Hogwarts’ hospital matron Poppy Pomfrey in three Harry Potters. For her performance in the unforgettable BBC television film Marvellous,