Don’t be fooled by the breezy, Richard Curtis-like stylings of You & Me. This sentimental charmer, executive-produced by Russell T Davies, may look like a romcom, but it’s more David Nicholls’ One Day than Notting Hill. This is a drama about tragedy, and whether hearts can survive the potential horrors that life may throw at them. “After the worst, most unimaginable thing has happened to them, do you really think people can be happy again, the way they were before?” asks up-and-coming theatrical star Emma (Jessica Barden). The answer plays itself out over three episodes, which twist, turn and pivot across two-ish timelines and several years.
At its best, it’s got a touch of Cold Feet to it. Industry’s Harry Lawtey plays Ben, a carefree young man in London whose life is changed for ever when he misses a bus at the exact same time as stranger Jess (Sophia Brown). For the first 20 minutes or so, it plays out like the romcom that it is pretending to be. The meet-cute is intensely cute, and there is plenty of lovely magical thinking going on. Strangers daring to strike up conversations with one another! In London! At a bus stop! (In You & Me, buses are romantic, which suggests the writer has blocked out any memories of dodging a rolling bottle full of something that looks a bit like apple juice on the 76 at 3am.) Ben is a journalist whose mother is a cleaner, yet he can afford a two-bedroom flat in the city that doesn’t have a shower in the kitchen and a fridge/wardrobe combo! Being a parent of small children doesn’t seem to age anyone at all! I like this London, all sun-kissed and optimistic and friendly and affordable.
