Brit Love
Romantic comedy Love Soup follows two misfits looking for love in all the wrong places-
Love Soup is a romantic comedy based on the age-old idea that there’s just one Mr. or Mrs. Right out there for everyone. But what to do until you find them? The BBC AMERICA co-production stars Tamsin Greig (Green Wing, Black Books) as Alice Chenery, a perfume account manager in a London department store and Michael Landes (CSI, Peep Show) as Gil Raymond, a successful American comedy writer who moved to the English countryside looking for romance. As they endure a series of hilarious mismatches, bad dates, awkwardly friendly neighbors and sexually promiscuous workmates, Gil and Alice seem to be living parallel lives. In fact they’re perfect for each other — it’s just too bad they’ve never met. Trudie Styler also stars as Gil’s neighbor and confidante, Irene, who’s back in the game after throwing out her husband.
Love Soup premieres Tuesday, August 1, 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT.
Love Soup looks at the time when your first love is a distant memory but you haven’t yet found ‘the one’. Influenced by Neil Simon, Woody Allen and Larry David, Love Soup follows the hopes, fears and dating disasters of two neurotic singles as they try to find just one person they understand in a world where each feels increasingly excluded. Each episode shows their continuing doomed attempts to find the person who will bring them the happiness they deserve. But will cruel fate ever put them together?
“When writing Love Soup, I was reflecting on the unlikely miracle of having met and married the one woman in the world who shares my unique and peculiar take on life,” says writer/creator David Renwick. “In the first episode, tellingly, Gil and Alice are the only people in the world who appear alarmed by reports of a possible catastrophic asteroid impact forty years from now.”
For up-to-the-minute information on BBC AMERICA, forthcoming U.S. premieres, art work and news from the channel, log on to www.press.bbcamerica.com.
WHAT THE BRITISH PRESS SAID:
“There’s an element of Sleepless in Seattle to this, and a great deal more besides, with several sharp one-liners, and quirky stuff about their friends, neighbors, and various romantic travails.” Financial Times
“Trudie Styler as Irene is a previously undiscovered gem.” Sunday Telegraph
“I do believe that, in Love Soup, David Renwick has written his masterpiece. This is an extraordinary, riveting series, and I urge you not to miss it.” Daily Mail
“The longer this series goes on, the more likeable and offbeat it becomes.” The Times
“The path to true love is beautifully observed in this well-cast, wry romance.” Mail On Sunday
“Love Soup bubbles with small pleasures … funny, sharp and engaging.” People
“By turns achingly romantic and surprisingly dark, driven either by one-liners and sight gags or by melancholy … I can’t wait for a second helping.” Daily Telegraph
“Understated and wholly engaging…wonderful moments of absurdity.” Observer
“A great new comedy-drama. It’s top stuff — plenty of laughs, but with the sort of dark, twisted touches that Renwick has made his trademark.” Daily Star
CAST AND PRODUCTION CREDITS
Alice Chenery Tamsin Greig (Green Wing, Black Books)
Gil Raymond Michael Landes (CSI, Peep Show)
Cleo Martin Sheridan Smith (Mile High)
Milly Russell M ontserrat Lombard (Murder in Suburbia)
Irene Trudie Styler (Me Without You, Empire)
Bob Brian Protheroe (North and South)
Frank (Episode 1) Terence Denville (A Perfect Spy)
Gina Massey (Episode 1) Jo-Anne Stockham (Macbeth, Wire in the Blood)
Julie Pirelli (Episode 1) Olivia Poulet (Friends and Crocodiles)
Lucy (Episode 1) Victoria Gay
Siobhan (Episode 1) Alison Pargeter (Green Wing)
Writer David Renwick (Not the Nine O’Clock News)
Directors Christine Gernon (One Foot in the Grave)
Sandy Johnson (Auf Wiedersehen, Pet)
Producer Verity Lambert (The Cazalets, Doctor Who)
Executive Producers David Renwick (BBC)
Sophie Clark-Jervoise (BBC)
Kathryn Mitchell (BBC AMERICA)
Love Soup is a BBC/BBC America co-production.
EPISODE SYNOPSES
Episode one
Alice finds that putting her apartment on the market is fraught with more problems than she imagined — especially when she finds the real estate agent’s underwear in her washing machine. When she recruits the help of a tall, handsome stranger, events take an unexpected turn. Gil, meanwhile, cannot believe the chaos that a stray remark to his neighbors has caused, and his promising relationship with an attractive TV producer is about to come badly unstuck.
Episode one premieres Tuesday, August 1, 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT.
Episode two
It’s Alice’s birthday. Her colleagues at the perfume counter tell her that her horoscope says the time is right to meet her perfect partner. They then take the liberty of arranging a date for her — after all, the stars are never wrong. Elsewhere, Gil is struggling to write the script for Love Soup and his efforts are hampered by several distractions, including his neighbor Irene, naked at her bathroom window, and the amorous intentions of a beautiful narcoleptic. Meanwhile, Alice receives an obscene text from a 13-year-old boy.
Episode two premieres Tuesday, August 8, 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT.
Episode three
Alice is horrified at the prospect of addressing a hall full of people at a sales conference, while Gil finds himself with the dubious honour of giving a speech at the opening of his neighbor’s new heated swimming pool. While at the conference, Alice has to share a hotel room with the gorgeous Rochelle — a junior account manager and part time model. She tells her colleagues on the perfume counter, “I stand next to her, it’s like the pros and cons of genetic engineering”. But then there’s the added horror of a sexual encounter from ten years ago coming back to haunt her in a very unusual way. Meanwhile, Gil is dragged off by his recently separated neighbor, Irene, to investigate the activities of a suburban prostitute. He also discovers the repercussions of inviting a former Hell’s Angel out to dinner. As events continue to spiral in unexpected directions, both Gil and Alice find themselves facing serious ethical dilemmas
Episode three premieres Tuesday, August 15, 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT.
Episode four
Alice’s search for a new apartment prompts her to reflect that properties are like people — just when you seem to have found the ideal candidate, there is always one fatal flaw. A chance meeting with a former colleague leads to an unfortunate evening with an avant garde artist, and her forced complicity in some “extra-marital semi-incestuous hanky panky”. And what is she to make of the strangely unnerving “aura” surrounding her friend’s new boyfriend? Gil, meanwhile, has been set up with a dream date — the dangerously erotic actress Pascal Peters, who he naturally fears is “probably into cocaine and rough sex and game-show hosts”. The two have arranged to meet at a local production of Waiting for Godot. But as Gil’s evening suddenly takes a nihilistic turn, will life end up imitating art? To compound matters, he has barely recovered from a highly embarrassing encounter in the pub, when he is forced to confront a major sexual fantasy from his youth.
Episode four premieres Tuesday, August 22, 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT.
Episode five
Alice discovers she has a secret admirer — a young medical student from her block. His partner is determined to nip his “schoolboy crush” in the bud and believes it’s up to Alice to sort the matter out by demonstrating that she is not the “mythic sex goddess” of his dreams. Unfortunately for Alice, this is just one of many problems vying for her attention — including some serious ethical issues raised by her friend’s love life, a highly damaging article in the department store’s in-house magazine and a truly bizarre revelation in her local cemetery. Meanwhile, for Gil, the road to a disastrously ill-judged sexual encounter begins when he attends a court case involving a man who died laughing while watching Lollipop Men, the sitcom he very wisely quit two years previously. Invited to join the show’s writing team on a new assignment, he quickly falls under the spell of beautiful colleague Vanessa. The attraction would seem to be mutual, but their plans for a romantic evening fall apart in a rather cruel and unexpected way.
Episode five premieres Tuesday, August 29, 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT.
Episode Six
An erotic dream and a chance meeting at a party seem to bring love at last for Gil and Alice. For Alice, the promise of love and a whole new direction to her life takes root after she learns that a member of her family is nursing a dark secret and desperately needs her help. Meanwhile, for Gil, the road to romantic fulfillment begins, of all places, in a dentist’s chair and ends up on the set of his latest screenplay.
Episode six premieres Tuesday, September 5, 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT.
INTERVIEW WITH TAMSIN GREIG
Entertainment/Drama
On dating:
“I think the dating game is a very tricky game to play. It’s incredibly exciting, but like walking on a rope bridge over molten lava — it’s like an extreme sport and I’m delighted not to have to do it ever again. For me, the greatest thing about the dating game was giving it up. I thought this is insane, I don’t know what I’m doing and I’ve got to get out of it. I made a conscious decision not to date anybody and then, a month later, I met my husband. So I can understand where Alice is coming from. I do think there’s someone out there who is perfect for you but you have to have your eyes open and your heart ready to recognize it when it comes and you can’t be obsessive about looking for it. It’s a bit like catching a bus — you can’t make one come along but you can be ready to jump on it when it does. Unfortunately, Alice doesn’t have her eyes open — in fact she’s wearing blinkers and ear muffs and a very large overcoat!”
On her character, Alice:
“She’s not actively looking for love, but she gets herself into these situations either by accident or by someone else’s design. She’s amazed that the conversation of the girls on the perfume counter is about men all the time, she just doesn’t get it. But although she doesn’t have a desperate desire to be dating, she’s driven by this urge to find somebody, even though she won’t acknowledge that that’s what’s going on. It’s like a secret longing that’s within.”
On how she met her husband: ntertainment/Drama
“I remember watching the bit at the end of When Harry Met Sally where there are interviews of old couples talking about their relationships and saying when they met they just knew they were right for each other it used to make me really cross because I thought they’re either lying or they’re mad. It hadn’t happened to me, so obviously that meant it couldn’t happen to anyone. Then I met my husband and realized that I was completely wrong, that it does happen and that you do know. But you can’t explain to someone what that knowing is like. I was 29 when I met my husband and I thought I’d never meet anybody and suddenly there he was. My husband is older than me and we discovered that I went to school in the area where he was driving vans for a company. He was bombing around the area where my school was so he could very well have run me over, but he didn’t, and then he married me. So obviously there were a lot of angels protecting his van and his driving. We didn’t meet until many years later in a completely different environment so it’s really fascinating to see just how close your paths get and yet they’re not allowed to intersect.”
INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL LANDES
On Love Soup:
“You see Tamsin’s character and mine living these parallel lives. You get my point of view of meeting the wrong girl, and then you see Alice going through her version of that, so you get a female perspective and a male — but essentially they are the same.You sometimes hear what I’m thinking, like my character will say to himself, ‘Why’d you come to this dinner tonight?’ And I’m talking but you come back to see not me, but Alice at a real crap dinner, and then you cut to me and I’m at my crap dinner. Or she’ll be musing ‘I wonder if there’s anybody in the world who would think like me’, and then you see me reacting the same way. So hopefully people will think ‘wouldn’t they be great together?’ David links us very well, it’s very clever the way he puts it all together. David actually writes situations that are so bizarre or awkward or whatever, that if you just let yourself be involved in the situation they are truly funny. They are slices of life that we all identify with.”
An American in the UK:
I did a pilot that David Schwimmer directed. When the pilot didn’t get picked up I got a call on the Saturday – ‘Do you want to get on a plane on Tuesday and go and do When Harry Met Sally in London’s West End?’ The holy grail, I think, for many actors is to do a play either on Broadway or in the West End — so, as much as I was scared and excited all at once, I came and had the best time of my life. I love all the biscuits and the food. I like London for a lot of reasons. It’s like a cleaner, quieter New York. I like the history behind it, I like the fact that we’re in Europe. I like the people — they are mostly very civilized — I left my sunglasses in a coffee shop and when we went back they were still there. My wife said, ‘it’s England, of course they’re going to be there!’ I don’t love the weather though — I don’t like that in February you have to turn your lights on at 3:30 p.m. I love The Office, but Little Britain I don’t really understand!”
On his wife and family:
“I’ve found my true love. We met on an independent movie in Boston [he is married to actor Wendy Benson]. It’s not a very creative way to meet but I think people in regular jobs meet at work as well. And now we have a little baby! My wife has family and friends in Britain because her dad is a British citizen and she went to drama school here. We’ve been staying in central London so it’s great to be able to go to the parks with the baby.”
On dating:
“We’ve all gone through this kind of journey, where the girl’s perfect except that she’s got a weird past or whatever it is this time. But if I was Gil I wouldn’t try too hard, you have to be open. I don’t know what the secret is but I think when it comes together it really does and it just happens. When I met my wife I just knew. I had been in a bunch of relationships and she had been in a bunch of relationships and everything just came together so effortlessly — that was the thing. It didn’t require thought or worry, everything kind of clicked. I know it might sound corny, but any other time I was ever in a relationship I felt it was always, ‘Yeah, but why am I worried about that?’ or ‘Why am I arguing about this?’ and this time it just felt so easy and perfect. And then I thought, well if marriage is for a lifetime, you might have challenges later in life — but what a great starting point.”
INTERVIEW WITH TRUDIE STYLER
On her character, Irene:
“Producer Verity Lambert described Irene as quite mad! It’s a very colorful part to get my teeth into and I had a huge laugh in creating her. I was encouraged to really let go with Irene – so I did! She’s incredibly repressed and has never really spoken up for what she really wants. She’s all surface — she dresses in her neat little pastels and sweet accessories, she’s always done the right thing and entertained the guests and cooked for her husband and stayed at home and is probably bored out of her mind. I would say that their marriage, even though it has been happy, has become sort of ho-hum and a bit boring and she is ready for some excitement in her life. You get a sort of sense that her behavior is trying to get a rise out of her husband, and it’s easy to sympathize with that after years of supposedly happy marriage suddenly collapse around her.
On marriage:
“We know that marriages sometimes are very taken for granted and therein lies the poison. I think it’s about communication and working on it, not being afraid to share with each other what the truth of a situation is. The difficult talks are the most productive.”
When she is not acting:
“I think I’ve got attention deficit disorder! Seriously, I have got a lot of energy and I like to be very active. I like to be in the world doing a lot of things — I love my life, I love living, I like to help out when I can. Being a UNICEF ambassador, I get to see war-torn areas of the world where people are suffering and I like to think I can play a small part in helping to relieve that by fundraising and getting the word out. I was developing films and getting them under way, which I consider my main daytime job — I work with first-time writer/directors, helping put them on the first rung of the ladder. My latest production is A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints with Robert Downey Jr., written and directed by Dito Montiel who I think is going to rise and shine. And, I’ve also got the taste for directing. I’ve just directed for the first time — my new love is called Wait, a short. Glamour magazine commissioned four women who don’t normally direct — there’s me, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jenny Bicks who created Sex And The City and Rosario Dawson. For me, directing was a different creative approach, more collaborative than I imagined it would be — but I liked that. I like having a team around me and to figure out a way to create a story. It was utterly wonderful for me to have that experience — it’s quite lonely being a producer I find. So now I’ve got a new bug!”
