Emma Thompson - Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang

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Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin and New York

First published in Great Britain in March 2010 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

36 Soho Square, London, W1D 3QY

This electronic edition published in April 2010 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Copyright 2010 Universal Studios Licensing LLLP.

Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang Universal Studios. All rights reserved

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ISBN 978 1 4088 1206 8

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A Warning to the Reader

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This is a slightly odd book, being a mixture of story and diary. It is the story of Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang and the diary of the filming of the story, all mixed up.

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I did not write it like this on purpose it just happened while I was on the film set and seemed an interesting way to do it. If you get bored with the story you can always just read the diary. And vice versa. Good luck.

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For Grandpa Eric,

Grandma Fifi,

Grandpa Doug

and Grandma Yonnie

and their grandchildren,

Ernie, Gaia, Walter and Tindy

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The Diary 1

Here we are on the first day of the shoot of the new Nanny McPhee film. I am playing Nanny McPhee, but not today because she does not appear in this scene. Today I am just the writer. I am here in case anyone needs to change what they say or needs something extra to say or needs to CUT DOWN what they say.

We are on the set of Deep Valley Farm and a most magnificent set it is. Months ago, Susanna White (the Director see Glossary) and Simon Elliott (the Designer see Glossary) saw this location and decided it was perfect for the story. So Simon drew lots of pictures and hundreds of people worked like stink and now I am sitting in front of a beautiful old farmhouse with a dovecote and outhouses, an original ancient barn and a fascinating garden, which ALL looks as if it has been here for hundreds of years but in fact was only finished last Thursday.

Im wearing mud-covered snow boots, leggings (ill-advised) and an enormous puffy jacket. I am sitting next to my friend Lindsay Doran, who is producing the film (see Glossary). To our right is the Scratch-O-Matic (see page 17); to my left, the Sound Department (see Glossary). Its raining and we have had to stop filming.

Why is it raining? I whine to Lindsay.

Because we are shooting this picture in England during the summer, says Lindsay. Of course its raining.

Lindsay has produced lots of films in England during the summer and, even though she is American, she understands our weather. Everyone is squelching about, looking depressed, especially Mike Eley, the DP (see you get the idea).

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The only thing I can usefully do is to start writing the first chapter of The Story. Theres nothing else to do. Soon I shall also be IN THE WAY. Thats how it always works on a film set. Youre nearly always in the way. But I shall perch here for a minute and begin. The story is called Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang. Youll see why later...

Families are weird. Youd think that people who live and eat and sleep in the same place would always have a lot in common. But sometimes they dont have anything in common AT ALL. You can have a brother who really likes ballet and a sister who thinks its girlie. You could probably have Darth Vader and Mickey Mouse in the same family; theyre that weird.

The story I am about to tell you concerns one such family...

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The Story 1

The grandparents in our story were so posh that they werent even called Mr and Mrs. They were called Lord and Lady Carrington. Everyone assumed they were happily married because they behaved terribly well and wore very expensive clothes, but the truth of the matter was that no one really knew because no one had ever seen or heard them talking to each other. They had two daughters called Prunella and Isabel.

Prunella was the eldest and was conceited and vain. All she wanted to do was to go shopping or hunt small animals for the purpose of killing them. Luckily, she is not going to be in our story very much.

All Isabel wanted was to have a real family of her own. By real, she meant a family that had people in it who actually loved each other. When she expressed this one day at breakfast, everyone went very quiet. Lord Carrington coughed, but that was the only response. Like I said, weird.

At any rate, the two sisters and their Very Grand Parents rubbed along like people do even when they havent anything to say to each other, until one day there was an Important Garden Party.

Lord and Lady Carrington dressed their girls up in their prettiest frocks (when I say Lord and Lady Carrington, I mean, of course, their servants but you knew that), and took them along, hoping to find them husbands.

Prunella knew exactly what was expected of her. She made a beeline for the richest young lord present and pretended to like everything he liked, even though she wasnt remotely interested in war machines or maps of seventeenth-century Europe.

Isabel, however, spotted a rather lovely meadow beyond the grounds of the palace where the party was taking place and decided to go and look for moles. Leaving her enormous bonnet under a hydrangea, she hitched up her posh frock and climbed over the wall.

It was a pretty day and Isabel was looking very pretty in it. So when a young farmer by the name of Rory Green came by in his pony and trap and saw her, he fell instantly in love. Impulsive by nature (as anyone who knows anything about the world would already have realised, and, quite frankly, its pretty stupid to fall in love with a pretty girl in a pretty frock in a pretty field on a pretty day. Dont. Find out what shes like first), he parked the pony and leapt into the field to say hello. The fact is that Isabel was also quite impulsive and, upon seeing the handsome young man leaping over the gate and hailing her with quite the nicest smile shed ever seen, she went and fell instantly in love too.

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A recipe for disaster, I hear you cry, and under less fortunate circumstances you would be perfectly right. But as luck would have it, Isabel and Rory were not only impulsive but really enjoyed the same things. Things like egg and cress, spiders webs after rain, the smell of cow parsley and, surprisingly, early thatching techniques. They realised very quickly that they simply had to get married and have babies together.

Well.

You can imagine the reaction.

Poor Prunella, whod done so well and got engaged to someone shed soon end up loathing, was completely ignored as Lord and Lady Carrington tried to persuade Isabel that she was delusional and needed six months in a Belgian sanatorium to cure her of her fantasies. There was a lot of sputtering and muttering and cold baths and doctors recommendations until finally Isabel got so cheesed off that she packed a small bag and eloped.