Our favourite bear friend Paddington is very nearly BACK! Let the November 10th countdown begin. In anticipation, the lovely Studiocanal folks held an exclusive footage screening of 4 clips to show a glimpse of what to expect, complete with Paddy sandwiches and the calypso band from the first movie. I can assure you, from the looks of things, it is paw-sitively teddy-rific. I can also assure you it's a lot better than my pun attempts.

Paddington 2 sees the return of Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins, with Ben Whishaw voicing Mr P, and some new faces in the form of Brendan Gleeson and Hugh Grant. In the clips, we watched how the characters  (BIG characters at that) were introduced. Grant plays Phoenix Buchanan, a faded local actor who now mainly stars in dog food adverts, and Gleeson is Knuckles McGinty - and yes, he is as scary as his name suggests. McGinty is the prison cook...but why is there a prison, you say? There's bound to be mischief ahead! The earnestness of Paddington shone through in every snippet, and there is a particularly magical scene about a vintage pop-up book of London. This book in question gets stolen (gasp) - what will happen next?

The upcoming sequel to 2014's much-loved Paddington is out in November, and it seems the team are working around the clock to do the finishing touches. A few scenes we watched weren't finalised but I found it even more insightful to get a behind-the-scenes flavour of how the visual effects put the animated character together. The end result is, of course, our lifelike furry friend and he's fantastic! The first film had some of the heartwarming styles of animation, bringing Paddington's different worlds to life which stayed with me for such a long time, and I am happy to report we get a lot more of that.

Every clip left me almost-shouting "can you just play the whole movie?". The preview was also introduced by a live musical performance, and introduction by the film's star Hugh Bonneville. Hugh stayed behind for a chat afterwards and I asked him what is used in place of Paddington whilst filming, but it came out more like, "When Paddington's sitting above your head, what's actually above your head?" The answer? "My imagination."

I can't wait for a film full of imagination to hit cinemas on 10th November.

Watch the first look trailer now!

Oh hey, Mr Brown