YOU CAN'T HURRY LOVE
Will a childhood crush work out... two decades later?
IT’S a pact that might be familiar to a lot of people. You’re young and carefree and imagining the future, when you and a mate decide that if you’re both single by a certain age, you’ll marry each other. A back-up plan.
That’s the premise for this comedy, the latest in a long raft of pilots from the BBC, but one which we’d gladly see run into a series.
It starts with 15-year-old pals Amy and Andy messing around – he’s just given her a mix tape. Anyone who was young in the 90s knows that a mix tape means absolute undying love. (Anyone who wasn’t born then is probably wondering what a mix tape is.)
“I think you just might be the nicest human boy I’ve ever met,” says Amy, oblivious that Andy is staring at her with lovelorn puppy dog eyes.
But she suggests a pact – marry at 35 if they are both single. Amy doesn’t ever think it will happen, but Andy desperately hopes it will.
Fast forward 20 years and both have terrible love lives. Amy (Sarah Solemani) is basically Bridget Jones. She has to endure her nephew’s birthday party full of smug marrieds wondering why she has no husband, no kids, and is still renting. Her relationships never seem to go beyond drunken one night stands.
Meanwhile, Andy (Brett Goldstein) is divorced with a son, but in a new relationship with a woman who he barely tolerates.
Just as Amy is contemplating her terrible life in the midst of the kids’ party from hell, in walks Andy who still remembers the pact.
Funny and sweet, with a great cast including Ade Adepitan and Lolly Adefope, there’s plenty of scope here for more.