Original article here.
In a world of lovable, smarter than your average bears – Yogi, Pooh, Baloo – none have endured in the public imagination quite like the marmalade-guzzling Peruvian, Paddington. You already know this, but “the bear” (as he’s known to close friends) arrived by boat, a tiny suitcase-wielding refugee from “darkest Peru” in Michael Bond’s 1958 inaugural Paddington adventure. Readers (and his adoptive family, the Browns) were asked to “Please look after this bear”. The British public – and latterly, it seems, the entire planet – happily obliged.
After nearly seven decades in London, multiple books and three films, Paddington Brown (he took his adopters’ name) is a British institution. Now he has made his West End debut in a musical extravaganza (and sure-fire instant classic) at the Savoy Theatre. In between shows and meeting the Prince and Princess of Wales backstage at the Royal Variety Performance, he found time to pop into The Savoy hotel to be photographed for Vogue in its Royal Suite (“only the best for the bear” is what the hotel told Vogue’s features desk).
Paddington is less anthropomorphic bear, more a safe space for our adult psyches, a bastion of naivety, guileless optimism and resilience. Whatever the year or state of things, he will always inhabit a comforting world where neighbours are neighbourly and umbrellas are a cumbersome commitment, where boiled sweets are sold in imperial measures and it’s always somehow time for a polite afternoon tea (never a boozy dinner). Bar a few disapproving hard stares at people who’ve irked him, Paddington is a distinctly unproblematic slice of British life – the Royal Mail without the delays, Blue Peter where no one was ever fired for bingeing drugs. He is a PR dream who’s never got his paws dirty – he’s never had a grotty Sunday red-top splash, ne’er been embroiled in a scandal that needed spinning, nor an apology written on the Notes app.
He is an emblem of liberal Britishness – inclusive, culturally diverse and accepting, the poster boy for immigrants making good – and an emblem for the arguably more toxic, flag-shagging Britishness that wants to stop the boats. Paddington is an escorting-the-queen-to-heaven illustration of blindly patriotic near-jingoism as well as a sanctuary for yummy mummies smearing marmalade on their children’s wholegrain Waitrose bread. That is to say, in these polarising, bordered and territorial times, Paddington’s allure crosses political, social and generational divides – from war vets to toddlers, from grannies to graduates, from fledglings to fashionistas.
Where Pooh’s rotundity doesn’t allow for trousers, Paddington’s blue duffle is a mainstay of British design, a bare necessity for drizzly London. It’s woven through with the restrained practicality that’s come to define British values – we are sensible, we are unshowy, we endure. We’re able to find the frightfully romantic in plain felted wool. The coat is a romanticised childhood personified, reminiscent of the evacuees on which Bond based Paddington’s character, and an everlasting classic like the bear himself. Who among us would pooh-pooh a stay-at-home parent toggling us into a cosy overcoat with a pocketful of marmalade sarnies nestled in greaseproof and string? Pads’ duffle is a girl-friendly, dad-friendly, snowball fight-friendly coat. It got him across the Atlantic, it will get you through rush hour.
Is his appeal nostalgic? Certainly. But Paddington remains the right side of saccharine, swerving the sentimental. His origin story might feel distant, but his life is a contemporary reassurance – nobody stopped his boat, our embrace of him could not be any more open-armed. He epitomises the cultural richness of immigration and embodies the unquestionable modernity of any immigrant thriving in London. In the grand heritage of It girls, Paddington has that affable quality that transcends the sum of his square parts. It’s not just the coat. It’s not just the hat. It’s not just the feeling of deep-rooted Britishness. Paddington is an It bear. Pass the marmalade sandwiches.