Author | Marian Keyes |
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Country | Ireland |
Language | English |
Genre | Fiction, humour, romance |
Publisher | Poolpeg |
Publication date
|
1996 |
Preceded by | Watermelon |
Followed by | Rachel's Holiday |
Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married | |
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Genre | Romantic comedy |
Written by | Colin Brake |
Directed by | Brian Grant |
Starring |
Sam Loggin, Gerard Butler Zoë Eeles, Letitia Dean, Gwyneth Strong, Debbie Chazen, Michael Troughton |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of episodes | 16 |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Brian Eastman |
Running time | 30 mins |
Release | |
Original network | ITV |
Original release | 8 November 1999 |
Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married is an international best selling 1996 novel by Irish author, Marian Keyes. It chronicles the life of Lucy Sullivan, a 26-year-old perpetually broke, unlucky-in-love office worker from London, who has a penchant for bad boys, a needy, alcoholic and flawed father, a dead-end job and exasperating flat-mates, dippy Charlotte and bossy Karen. The book is written in the first person and is described by Keyes as a "sideways" sequel to her first novel Watermelon. The novel was adapted into a television series in 1999. It aired on the ITV network, but struggled with numerous scheduling changes. The series has aired internationally and has been released on DVD.
Lucy visits a fortune teller with her three mis-matched friends, and a marriage is predicted in her future. When the fortune-teller's prophecies for her friends come true, Lucy begins to suspect that she will soon be marrying. Lucy spends the following 12 months looking for Mr Right. Various eligible bachelors are introduced, among them Gus, Lucy's unreliable lover; Daniel, her oldest friend; Chuck, a handsome American; and Adrian, the video shop man. This is followed by a series of disastrous dates, drunken nights out, confessions and revelations. Author Keyes has said, "I'm very fond of that book and I think I have the most affection for Lucy Sullivan as a character. There's a lot of me in there [...] I wanted to write about a single girl in London who goes out with eejit after eejit, you know, because that was really the life I had led, and there was this strange culture of singleness I encountered and I found this very funny. Lucy's depressive, but she has a sense of humour, and that's why I like her."
The success of the novel led to publishing deals of more than £600,000, one of the most lucrative ever achieved by an unestablished writer. Between Britain and Ireland Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married has sold over 250,000 copies; In Ireland, the book went straight to number one and stayed there for nine weeks.
The novel was adapted into an 8 hour, sixteen part, television drama series by Carnival Films for the LWT network. It originally aired on ITV in November 1999. It was described as a "saga about broken hearts and terrifyingly unsuitable boyfriends" with "plenty of workplace-mileage to be extracted from Lucy's job at Nudawn Supplies". Sam Loggin played Lucy. Her flatmates, Charlotte, a promiscuous dippy blonde, and Karen, a bossy Scottish communal financer, were played by Letitia Dean and Zoë Eeles respectively. Other characters included Lucy's three work colleagues: over-weight Meredia (Debbie Chazen), loud-mouthed Megan (), and middle-class Hetty (Gwyneth Strong). The group of girls party their way around London looking for would-be husbands or boyfriends. Gerard Butler starred as Lucy's unreliable lover, Gus.