Love Soup
Encyclopedia
Love Soup is a British
television
comedy-drama
produced by the BBC
and first screened on BBC One
in the autumn of 2005. It stars Tamsin Greig
as Alice Chenery (a role written especially for her) and Michael Landes
as Gil Raymond (Series 1 only). The series is written by David Renwick
of One Foot in the Grave
fame, and was produced by Verity Lambert
. This was the last programme that Lambert produced before she died. The programme was initially a critical success although its audience figures were steady rather than spectacular, netting an average of five million viewers an episode. Renwick and his former scriptwriting partner Andrew Marshall
have cameo appearances in one episode as members of a television sitcom scriptwriting team.
The second series started on 1 March 2008 and finished on 17 May 2008. This series contained changes from the first, episodes were 30 minutes long, as opposed to 60 minutes, and lasted for 12 episodes instead of 6. Although the character of Gil was mentioned and momentarily seen in the final episode — using a clip of Michael Landes from the previous series — he was not a main character.
The theme tune to Love Soup is "Alley Boogie" by jazz
singer Georgia White
.
The first series was released on DVD
in the UK on 3 December 2007.
The second series (and a boxset containing both series) was released on 10 May 2008.
) and Gil Raymond (Michael Landes
) are perfect for each other. They like the same things, respect the same things, and share the same beliefs. The only problem is that they are completely unaware of each other's existence.
Alice is a modern woman with old-fashioned values. Although the manageress of a perfume company concession in a London
department store, she lives in Brighton
. She is trying to sell her flat and move, without success. Her love life is no success either. She can never find the perfect man. What is worse, her co-workers, Cleo Martin (Sheridan Smith
) and Milly Russel (Montserrat Lombard
), always seem to have more success with men, though their relationships never really last more than a week. Cleo and Milly try to pair her up with several men, but to no avail. She does have some family members (at least one cousin), but her parents, Arthur and Grace, are both dead.
Gil is an American
comedy writer, who has moved to England to start a new project with TV producer Lloyd Drewitt (Owen Brenman
). It is a series of six romantic comedies called Love Soup and he has been asked to write one of them. Things started badly for Gil when he arrived at his house (15 Carpenters Lane, Larch End), and discovered his then girlfriend was seeing another man as soon as they arrived in the country. His next door neighbours are Irene and Bob Andrews (Trudie Styler
and Brian Protheroe
), who split up after Gil accidentally exposes Bob's affair with a prostitute. Afterwards, he becomes increasingly worried about Irene's intentions towards him.
The series follows their somewhat forlorn attempts to find the perfect partner, whilst the viewer knows that Alice and Gil are the ideal couple. The series itself follows each plot separately, cutting from Alice's story to Gil's throughout the episode. The only exception is the final scene of the first series, which shows Alice in the theatre watching a comedy where she is the only person in the entire audience not laughing - apart from Gil, who is sitting two rows behind her. They still do not find each other.
In the third episode of the second series, Alice arranges a date through a personal ad in a magazine. When he fails to turn up she returns home and rips up his photograph. She receives a phone call from Lloyd, telling her that his friend could not make the date. The reason is not stated on screen, but Alice, clearly shaken, picks up the torn photograph and reassembles it, it is a photo of Gil. The next episode, it is revealed that Gil died of a heart attack. In the seventh episode of the series, Alice is invited into Gil's world via Lloyd, where she begins a relationship with a writer, Douglas McVitie (Mark Heap
). After a while she feels that there is little love in the relationship so she tries to break it up; Douglas, however, is determined to stay with her. Alice also moves in with Fae Maddison (Amelia Curtis
), a famous actress she meets after a date goes horribly wrong.
said that, "Like David Renwick's previous sitcom creation, Victor Meldrew
[from One Foot in the Grave
], Alice is meant to represent a bunch of prevailing attitudes. In fact, like him, she is entirely implausible. Happily, this fundamental error makes her no less funny."
James Walton in the Daily Telegraph commented negatively about the loss of Landes saying, "In the first series Gil's job as a TV scriptwriter meant that Renwick could always add a bit of edge by attacking modern television. Without that, and with Alice remaining so utterly lovely, the tone is often surprisingly soppy." The basis for this was subsequently rendered redundant as Alice began to move in media circles via her association with Lloyd, Douglas and Fae. Walton also wrote however that, "Renwick does his usual professional job with the script, and Greig is as good as ever at registering various shades of disappointment."
Sam Wollaston in The Guardian
was critical of Love Soup writing, "I don't like the fact that so little happens. Or how implausible the few things that do happen are. I know it's meant to be comedy, not a reflection of real life; but it helps if comedy can keep a toe in plausibility (unless it's so crazy, like Green Wing
, that it's funny for that very reason). But Milly falling in love with a shadow - actually more like a projection of a man on to the side of a van that miraculously happens outside her flat every night - well, that's just stupid. And I don't like its irritating jazzy soundtrack, or how small and British it all feels (and I mean both in the worst possible way). Love Soup is insipid broth and I've had enough already."
There were also many positive reviews.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
comedy-drama
Comedy-drama
Comedy-drama is a genre of theatre, film and television programs which combines humorous and serious content.-Theatre:Traditional western theatre, beginning with the ancient Greeks, was divided into comedy and tragedy...
produced by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and first screened on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
in the autumn of 2005. It stars Tamsin Greig
Tamsin Greig
Tamsin Greig is an English actress principally known for two Channel 4 television comedy parts: Fran Katzenjammer in Black Books and Dr. Caroline Todd in Green Wing...
as Alice Chenery (a role written especially for her) and Michael Landes
Michael Landes
Michael Christopher Landes is an American actor. He is known for his roles of Jimmy Olsen in the first season of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Detective Nicholas O'Malley in Special Unit 2, Officer Thomas Burke in Final Destination 2, and David Conlon in The Wedding Bells.-Lois...
as Gil Raymond (Series 1 only). The series is written by David Renwick
David Renwick
David Peter Renwick is an English television writer, best known for creation of the sitcom One Foot in the Grave and the mystery series Jonathan Creek....
of One Foot in the Grave
One Foot in the Grave
One Foot in the Grave is a BBC television sitcom series written by David Renwick. The show ran for six series, including seven Christmas specials, two Comic Relief specials, over an eleven year period, from early 1990 to late 2000...
fame, and was produced by Verity Lambert
Verity Lambert
Verity Ann Lambert, OBE was an English television and film producer. She is best known as the founding producer of the science-fiction series Doctor Who, a programme which has become a part of British popular culture, and for her association with Thames Television...
. This was the last programme that Lambert produced before she died. The programme was initially a critical success although its audience figures were steady rather than spectacular, netting an average of five million viewers an episode. Renwick and his former scriptwriting partner Andrew Marshall
Andrew Marshall (writer)
Andrew Marshall is an English comedy screenwriter, most noted for the domestic sitcom 2point4 children. He was also the inspiration for Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...
have cameo appearances in one episode as members of a television sitcom scriptwriting team.
The second series started on 1 March 2008 and finished on 17 May 2008. This series contained changes from the first, episodes were 30 minutes long, as opposed to 60 minutes, and lasted for 12 episodes instead of 6. Although the character of Gil was mentioned and momentarily seen in the final episode — using a clip of Michael Landes from the previous series — he was not a main character.
The theme tune to Love Soup is "Alley Boogie" by jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
singer Georgia White
Georgia White
Georgia White was an African American blues singer, most prolific in the 1930s and 1940s.Little is known of her early life. By the late 1920s she was singing in clubs in Chicago, and she made her first recording, "When You're Smiling, the Whole World Smiles With You," with Jimmie Noone's...
.
The first series was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in the UK on 3 December 2007.
The second series (and a boxset containing both series) was released on 10 May 2008.
Situation
Alice Chenery (Tamsin GreigTamsin Greig
Tamsin Greig is an English actress principally known for two Channel 4 television comedy parts: Fran Katzenjammer in Black Books and Dr. Caroline Todd in Green Wing...
) and Gil Raymond (Michael Landes
Michael Landes
Michael Christopher Landes is an American actor. He is known for his roles of Jimmy Olsen in the first season of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Detective Nicholas O'Malley in Special Unit 2, Officer Thomas Burke in Final Destination 2, and David Conlon in The Wedding Bells.-Lois...
) are perfect for each other. They like the same things, respect the same things, and share the same beliefs. The only problem is that they are completely unaware of each other's existence.
Alice is a modern woman with old-fashioned values. Although the manageress of a perfume company concession in a London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
department store, she lives in Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
. She is trying to sell her flat and move, without success. Her love life is no success either. She can never find the perfect man. What is worse, her co-workers, Cleo Martin (Sheridan Smith
Sheridan Smith
Sheridan Smith is an English actress and singer who is best known for her contributions to the British sitcoms Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Gavin & Stacey and Benidorm. She has also become a recognised face in West End theatre, where she has appeared in Little Shop of Horrors,...
) and Milly Russel (Montserrat Lombard
Montserrat Lombard
Montserrat Lombard is a British actress best known for playing WPC Sharon 'Shaz' Granger in the BBC Drama series Ashes to Ashes.Lombard was born in London. She is half Spanish and half Italian...
), always seem to have more success with men, though their relationships never really last more than a week. Cleo and Milly try to pair her up with several men, but to no avail. She does have some family members (at least one cousin), but her parents, Arthur and Grace, are both dead.
Gil is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
comedy writer, who has moved to England to start a new project with TV producer Lloyd Drewitt (Owen Brenman
Owen Brenman
Owen Brenman is an English actor best known for his role as next-door neighbour Nick Swainey in the multi-award-winning BBC sitcom One Foot in the Grave, which ran for ten years and was written by David Renwick. He currently plays Dr...
). It is a series of six romantic comedies called Love Soup and he has been asked to write one of them. Things started badly for Gil when he arrived at his house (15 Carpenters Lane, Larch End), and discovered his then girlfriend was seeing another man as soon as they arrived in the country. His next door neighbours are Irene and Bob Andrews (Trudie Styler
Trudie Styler
Trudie Styler is an English actress and producer. She is the second wife of the musician Sting.-Life and career:Styler was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, England. She attended North Bromsgrove High School, where one of her teachers was Clifford T. Ward...
and Brian Protheroe
Brian Protheroe
Brian Protheroe , of a Welsh father and English mother, is a musician and actor.-Career:Protheroe joined a local church choir when he was twelve years old, and started piano lessons at about the same time. The music of Cliff Richard and The Shadows inspired him to start learning the guitar...
), who split up after Gil accidentally exposes Bob's affair with a prostitute. Afterwards, he becomes increasingly worried about Irene's intentions towards him.
The series follows their somewhat forlorn attempts to find the perfect partner, whilst the viewer knows that Alice and Gil are the ideal couple. The series itself follows each plot separately, cutting from Alice's story to Gil's throughout the episode. The only exception is the final scene of the first series, which shows Alice in the theatre watching a comedy where she is the only person in the entire audience not laughing - apart from Gil, who is sitting two rows behind her. They still do not find each other.
In the third episode of the second series, Alice arranges a date through a personal ad in a magazine. When he fails to turn up she returns home and rips up his photograph. She receives a phone call from Lloyd, telling her that his friend could not make the date. The reason is not stated on screen, but Alice, clearly shaken, picks up the torn photograph and reassembles it, it is a photo of Gil. The next episode, it is revealed that Gil died of a heart attack. In the seventh episode of the series, Alice is invited into Gil's world via Lloyd, where she begins a relationship with a writer, Douglas McVitie (Mark Heap
Mark Heap
Mark Heap is an English actor. He began his acting career in the 1980s as a member of the Medieval Players, a touring company performing medieval and early modern theatre, and featuring stilt-walking, juggling and puppetry...
). After a while she feels that there is little love in the relationship so she tries to break it up; Douglas, however, is determined to stay with her. Alice also moves in with Fae Maddison (Amelia Curtis
Amelia Curtis
Amelia A Curtis is a British actress born in Stockholm, Sweden. She is notable for having played the role of Viki Lovejoy in the final series of Lovejoy, a role that she took over from Amelia Shankley....
), a famous actress she meets after a date goes horribly wrong.
Series 1
| # | Title | Written by | Duration (mins) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
David Renwick David Peter Renwick is an English television writer, best known for creation of the sitcom One Foot in the Grave and the mystery series Jonathan Creek.... |
|||||
| Alice becomes worried about her security after she discovers her estate agent has been doing her washing in her flat. Gil causes his next door neighbours to split up, and goes on a date with a TV executive. | |||||
David Renwick David Peter Renwick is an English television writer, best known for creation of the sitcom One Foot in the Grave and the mystery series Jonathan Creek.... |
|||||
| Alice receives a disturbing text message from her Godson, and Milly has problems with her boyfriend after reading a magazine article. Gil toys with his Love Soup idea where Britain is run by tabloid newspapers, and gets in a tricky situation at a dinner party at Irene's. | |||||
David Renwick David Peter Renwick is an English television writer, best known for creation of the sitcom One Foot in the Grave and the mystery series Jonathan Creek.... |
|||||
| Gil is asked to open a swimming pool, and meets a fan of his work, later discovering she used to be a Hells Angel. Alice tries to defy her boss when she is asked to make a speech using the text of Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream I Have a Dream "I Have a Dream" is a 17-minute public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on August 28, 1963, in which he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination... " speech. |
|||||
David Renwick David Peter Renwick is an English television writer, best known for creation of the sitcom One Foot in the Grave and the mystery series Jonathan Creek.... |
|||||
| Gil is forced to watch a rather poor all-woman version of Waiting for Godot Waiting for Godot Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's... , and is then asked on a dinner date by a rather sexy actress. Alice bumps into an old friend, but later regrets their reunion, whilst Milly is blissfully unaware that her new boyfriend looks almost exactly like Jesus Christ. Guest stars Bernie Clifton Bernie Clifton Bernie Clifton is a British comedian and entertainer, who appeared on the BBC television series Crackerjack with Michael Aspel, Peter Glaze, Don Maclean and Jan Hunt in the 1970s.... . |
|||||
David Renwick David Peter Renwick is an English television writer, best known for creation of the sitcom One Foot in the Grave and the mystery series Jonathan Creek.... |
|||||
| Alice finds herself the centre of attraction from the man living in flat number 12, and is asked to sign a petition to get a "Talking gravestone" removed. Gil is asked to join a comedy writing team to write a sitcom pilot for a talentless documentary star, and starts to become attracted to a fellow writer. In the meantime, Bob asks Irene for forgiveness. | |||||
David Renwick David Peter Renwick is an English television writer, best known for creation of the sitcom One Foot in the Grave and the mystery series Jonathan Creek.... |
|||||
| The wife of Alice's cousin Stephen is going to jail, and she asks to keep an eye on him and their daughter, but Alice starts to wonder about Stephen's intentions towards her. Irene and Bob get back together, and tell Gil that Bob's mother wants to see him. She later passes away, leaving a £17,000 fortune all to him, "For picking up my spoon." | |||||
Series 2
- Episode 1: Smoke and Shadows Alice is worried when her predatory regional manager Catherine Sumpter (Rebecca FrontRebecca FrontRebecca Front is a BAFTA Award–winning English comedian and actress best known for her performances in The Thick of It in the late 2000s, and series of critically acclaimed satirical comedies in the early 1990s: On The Hour, The Day Today and Knowing Me, Knowing You...with Alan Partridge...
) visits her, who is suspected of being a lesbian. She also worries about the intentions of her driving instructor. During one lesson, Alice is carjacked. Milly is in love with a shadow and Cleo discovers her boyfriend has made negative comments about her in a journal. - Episode 2: Integrated Logistics Cleo attempts to fix up Alice with a sales rep, but the date ends in failure. She then becomes involved in a DickensianCharles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
romance. Cleo also offends Milly by her attempts to put a man off her by claiming that Milly is a man. - Episode 3: Dream Twister Alice meets Mitch (Sanjeev BhaskarSanjeev BhaskarSanjeev Bhaskar, OBE is a British Indian comedian, actor and broadcaster, best known for his work in the BBC Two comedy series Goodness Gracious Me and as host of The Kumars at No. 42...
), an old-school friend who has since become a lecturer. However, she worries that one of his students may be stalking him. Alice goes on a date with a man she meets through a lonely hearts column. He doesn't turn up, and when she reaches home she tears up his photo. - Episode 4: The Menaced Assassin A web of romantic deceit leads to Alice accidentally being caught up with the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorism unit. Cleo discovers some people taking part in dominance and submissionBDSMBDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...
games in a recycling centre. Milly has a relationship with a man who is half Native AmericanIndigenous peoples of the AmericasThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
. - Episode 5: Ragged Claws Alice falls for Matthew Carter, who sends her into a world full of smart cars, up-market restaurants and posh parties. Cleo and Milly fight over the same boyfriend and other more trivial matters.
- Episode 6: Sophisticated Lady In an attempt to find Alice her perfect partner, Milly and Cleo health-screen every available man in the department store by looking at their confidential prescription records at the store's pharmacy.
- Episode 7: Green Widow Alice is so short of money that she is forced to rent out her flat in Brighton and find cheaper accommodation in London, which ends up with her living with Milly. Lloyd meets Alice and introducers her to Douglas McVitie (Mark Heap), a writer who worked with Gil.
- Episode 8: Lobotomy Bay Alice and Douglas begin to have a physical relationship and end up in trouble over an answering machine message. They have dinner with Douglas ex-girlfriend, who is working on a cartoon series, whom Alice later discovers features an unflattering character that looks like her. Guest stars Bill BaileyBill BaileyBill Bailey is an English comedian, musician and actor. As well as his extensive stand-up work, Bailey is well known for his appearances on Black Books, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You, and QI.Bailey was listed by The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy in...
. - Episode 9: Kiss of Death Alice goes to a play at the Royal CourtRoyal Court TheatreThe Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
featuring one of her lifelong heroes, Gordon Bexter (Ronnie CorbettRonnie CorbettRonald Balfour "Ronnie" Corbett, OBE is a Scottish actor and comedian of Scottish and English parentage who had a long association with Ronnie Barker in the British television comedy series The Two Ronnies...
). Baxter reveals that he is currently directing a controversial play about necrophiliaNecrophiliaNecrophilia, also called thanatophilia or necrolagnia, is the sexual attraction to corpses,It is classified as a paraphilia by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The word is artificially derived from the ancient Greek words: νεκρός and φιλία...
written by the German playwright Stefan (Patrick MonckebergPatrick MonckebergPatrick Mönckeberg is a London-based German actor, born in Guatemala City. He trained at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts in London....
). Alice decides there is no spark in her relationship with Douglas, and calls it off, but Douglas believes that the breakup is not working and they get back together. - Episode 10: Whose God is it Anyway? Alice moves in with actress Fae Maddison, whose dying Jewish father is getting married. He asks Alice to pray for him, and the prayer gets answered, with it being revealed that he is going to live after all. As a result, his wife blames Alice for interfering with God. Douglas is trying to cope with the break-up by having acupuncture, taking drugs and dating his ironing lady (Joanna PageJoanna PageJoanna Louise Page is a Welsh actress, best known for playing Stacey in the television series, Gavin and Stacey.-Early and personal life:...
) - but there is more to her than meets the eye. - Episode 11: Human Error Alice has problems coping with Fae's behaviour. A long-forgotten film script written by Douglas looks as if it will be finally produced. However, the actor who is due to play the lead role, Marty Cady (Mackenzie CrookMackenzie CrookPaul Mackenzie Crook is a British actor and comedian. He is best known for playing Gareth Keenan in The Office and Ragetti in the Pirates of the Caribbean films.-Life and career:...
) appears to be too much to handle, especially after news reports circle about him and a dead prostitute. However, Douglas agrees to go to Marty's villa for six weeks to write the pilot. Lloyd ends up having a one-night stand with a woman with no arms. - Episode 12: Home When Douglas fails to contact Alice after 12 days; she begins to believe that their relationship is over. When Lloyd's relationship ends, Alice stops him from committing suicide. Lloyd gives Alice a CD containing Gil's diaries, which she reads and is moved to tears by. She later visits Gil's house and rests on the gate like Gil did in series 1. As she does this, Gil appears resting on the gate, she looks his way, doesn't see him, looks back to the house and he disappears.
Reception
Views of Love Soup are mixed. Andrew Billen in The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
said that, "Like David Renwick's previous sitcom creation, Victor Meldrew
Victor Meldrew
Victor Meldrew was a fictional character in the popular BBC One sitcom One Foot in the Grave. Created by David Renwick and played by Richard Wilson, the character was the archetypal grumpy old man...
[from One Foot in the Grave
One Foot in the Grave
One Foot in the Grave is a BBC television sitcom series written by David Renwick. The show ran for six series, including seven Christmas specials, two Comic Relief specials, over an eleven year period, from early 1990 to late 2000...
], Alice is meant to represent a bunch of prevailing attitudes. In fact, like him, she is entirely implausible. Happily, this fundamental error makes her no less funny."
James Walton in the Daily Telegraph commented negatively about the loss of Landes saying, "In the first series Gil's job as a TV scriptwriter meant that Renwick could always add a bit of edge by attacking modern television. Without that, and with Alice remaining so utterly lovely, the tone is often surprisingly soppy." The basis for this was subsequently rendered redundant as Alice began to move in media circles via her association with Lloyd, Douglas and Fae. Walton also wrote however that, "Renwick does his usual professional job with the script, and Greig is as good as ever at registering various shades of disappointment."
Sam Wollaston in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
was critical of Love Soup writing, "I don't like the fact that so little happens. Or how implausible the few things that do happen are. I know it's meant to be comedy, not a reflection of real life; but it helps if comedy can keep a toe in plausibility (unless it's so crazy, like Green Wing
Green Wing
Green Wing is a British sitcom set in the fictional East Hampton Hospital. It was created by the same team behind the sketch show Smack the Pony, led by Victoria Pile, and stars Tamsin Greig, Stephen Mangan and Julian Rhind-Tutt....
, that it's funny for that very reason). But Milly falling in love with a shadow - actually more like a projection of a man on to the side of a van that miraculously happens outside her flat every night - well, that's just stupid. And I don't like its irritating jazzy soundtrack, or how small and British it all feels (and I mean both in the worst possible way). Love Soup is insipid broth and I've had enough already."
There were also many positive reviews.
External links
- Love Soup at bbc.co.ukBbc.co.ukBBC Online is the brand name and home for the BBC's UK online service. It is a large network of websites including such high profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services co-branded BBC iPlayer, the pre-school site Cbeebies, and learning services such as Bitesize...
. - Love Soup at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
. - Love Soup at the British Comedy GuideBritish Comedy GuideThe British Comedy Guide or BCG is a British website covering all forms of British comedy, across all media. At the time of writing, the BCG has published guides to more than 1,200 individual British comedies - primarily TV and radio situation comedy, sketch shows, comedy dramas, satire, variety...
- Love Soup at British TV Comedy.
- Woman's Hour interview, 28 September 2005.