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Hello and welcome to another episode of a Really British podcast with me Tom.
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And me Annie.
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And today, Annie, we are talking about British rom-coms.
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I think it's your specialist subject.
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I've dressed appropriately.
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You have amour, which of course.
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Love, yes, exactly.
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Now, if I think if you were to go on Mastermind, I think this would be your specialist subject because you you do have an in-depth knowledge of the genre.
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Well, a love of it, I would say.
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I love it.
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Although looking through it, it's funny, I thought, gosh, I haven't actually spent the time to sit and watch any of these recently, but they are, I mean, I have seen them hundreds of times in the past.
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But yeah, I'm it made me want to go back and just have a kind of wet, rainy Sunday afternoon and just do a marathon of them.
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Yeah.
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Oh, that sounds quite dreamy, actually.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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I could I could have.
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Well, I think a couple of episodes ago we talked about four weddings and a funeral, and that will feature quite highly in in this episode.
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But before we get on to all that good stuff, um, you've been on holiday.
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Listeners will uh have said, Where did Annie go?
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And I was like, look, she's coming back.
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She went to Greece for a well-earned holiday.
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How was it?
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Oh, it was glorious, thank you.
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I feel recharged, revived, ready to go.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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You sent some amazing photos over of like, you know, sort of beautiful blue seas and delicious Greek food.
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It looked amazing.
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The sea definitely spoils you for other seas.
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It's just the water is incredible and it's so warm.
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People say it's like a bath.
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It's it's a bit more refreshing than a bath, which is what you want.
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But it's yeah, it's so beautiful.
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Nice, nice, nice.
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Well, welcome back.
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Although you did say just before we started um recording, you were like, I could do with another holiday to get over my holiday.
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Because something about getting back into life once you return, it's just it's hard, isn't it?
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You need a while to click back into get.
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To wrap back up, how have you been?
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You've been a busy I've been a busy bee.
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Yeah, so yesterday I spent a very awesome day in my publisher's office uh signing books.
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So for those of you who who don't know, I've got um a couple of books being published on the September the 24th.
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And so I went in to do like the book signing uh thing.
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But Annie, as you know, like my uh my handwriting is like a six-year-old child.
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So I had a real fear about kind of what it's gonna look like.
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Um, but yeah, I it we got a good Sharpie.
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I managed to to nail my hand, my signature.
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I love the fact you got a Sharpie.
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But it was so surreal, like doing that thing of like I had a big stack of books and I was like signing them and passing them down the line, and yeah, it just felt very, very real all of a sudden.
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And we did some like video footage and um the office is uh in central London, London Bridge area.
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So you get these amazing 360 views of you know, you can see St.
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Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, like Big Ben.
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You see all of it.
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The shard is literally right there.
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Amazing, yeah, it's pretty epic.
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A proper London Day.
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Well, it's funny, tying it to uh to rom coms, there is a there's a famous line in Notting Hill where um Hugh Grant says that if you can find an unsigned copy of a book, why also?
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They're worth a fortune.
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I was thinking I'm like devaluing each copy as I sign it, as I graffiti my handwriting on it.
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You're not okay.
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So uh after the little sting, we're gonna get into our conversation about British rom-coms.
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Welcome to a really British podcast with Annie and Tom.
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Okay, so let's get started.
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I mean, the genre really exploded in 1994 with the release of Four Weddings and a Funeral.
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And, you know, when I look back at it, I think there are three main protagonists that are largely responsible for British rom coms.
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And that's Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, who started Working Title, uh, which is the film and TV production company.
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Uh, they were the people behind Four Weddings in a Funeral, and then a guy called Richard Curtis who wrote the screenplay.
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Um, and I think without these three guys, we wouldn't have British rom coms.
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Um, if you look at the list of working title films that they've done since 1985, it's extraordinary.
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It's like uh Four Weddings in a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones Diary, About a Boy.
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Um, you the list goes on.
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I mean, it's amazing.
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They did other films like Senna, uh, Frost Nixon, Sean of the Dead.
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Um, they really were kind of like the pioneers of this genre, right?
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Yes, and then they found a brilliant actor who was able to bring these parts to life and and were just a lethal combination, really.
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Hugh Grant, right.
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So it all starts with four weddings and a funeral.
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I think that's the the the first one.
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It's 1994, I think that came out.
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And Hugh Grant plays the bumbling Brit, right?
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I mean, so we've talked about this film before, and I mean, like, what what do you remember from it?
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What why is it such an iconic film?
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Um, well, I think it just lifts the lid of a certain very privileged friendship group.
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Um, and you see the characters through four weddings and a funeral, just as it says on the tin, and you see the relationships develop.
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And I think what's lovely and what a lot of these films are actually, they they're multi-they've got multiple storylines going through and different characters that you you become quite attached to.
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Um, I mean, it's a love story as much about Hugh Grant falling in love with Andy McDowell, the American glamorous uh woman who appears at a number of these weddings, as it is about his friends and um uh this great group of pals who see each other through life's ups and downs.
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Um and there's just a lot of there's a lot of love in it, a love for friends, a love for romantic love.
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Um and then the same in Notting Hill and and Love Actually as well.
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Yeah, I think it also captures that season of life where every weekend is a wedding.
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So you're in your kind of like 20s, 30s, and you know, everyone you know is getting married.
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And so there are so many weddings that pepper a summer usually in the UK.
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So yeah, you're seeing each other each weekend.
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And I think you you referenced it in the podcast we had before where you said uh by the end of it, you didn't know whose wedding you were going to.
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It was like, who is it today?
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I know there's a scene where he literally looks down at the order of service and says, Who is it who's getting married today?
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I think what else I think what really defined four weddings was just the humour.
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It was such and it it it still gets me now.
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Like I I watched it fairly recently, and although the kind of images look old, like when they're driving in the car, I mean the cars look so old, the motorway looks so old, but it's like empty, yeah, yeah, yeah, empty, and like cars are tiny and they're you know, but the humour is still superb.
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Um, and and I just think that it kind of set a precedent as well for like what this genre of film needs to be.
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It needs to have love, but it needs to be witty.
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You need to have little jokes peppering it that are that are brilliant.
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So it even starts with sorry, it even starts with one of the best scenes to open a film I've ever seen, which is an alarm clock going off, and I think he sleeps through it.
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Yeah, he snoozes it.
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He snoozes it and then eventually wakes up and realizes he's gonna be late for this wedding.
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And the opening dialogue is just swear words, uh F words, F words, F words, um, all the way to the church um where they have to get to, which is is brilliant.
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Yeah, no, it's it's it's a genius opening and really sets you up for the film.
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And then it's a bit of a a joke that runs through the entire film.
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So at the end, when it's his wedding, they all joke that he's late, but they've they've changed the clock so that actually he's early.
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Right.
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Nice, yeah.
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And I think there's a lot of humour, and and the um the the classic Rowan Atkinson cameo the vicar who gets every line wrong, the holy spigot.
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The holy spigot, uh, take this awful wedded wife.
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Um, yeah, he's really like he just he's very Mr.
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Bean.
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I mean, I can't detach Rowan Atkinson from Mr.
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Bean.
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Yeah, and it's kind of that similar kind of bumbling um character.
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And I think so, yeah, that that sets off uh a kind of tradition of um bumbling Brits.
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So obviously Hugh Grant plays that character so well and he's kind of awkward and but endearing, right?
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It's kind of like he's like you know, getting things wrong, stumbling on his words, but it's you know, you kind of you like him for it.
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Um he's charming, very charming, but also that the same actors start to appear in the films, right?
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And yeah, I guess that makes sense.
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I mean, if you're working with the same director, the same production company, they're gonna want the same actors to go through them, right?
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And the uh well, and the interestingly, um the American lead female, yes, yes, it's almost like that works the best.
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Because interestingly, in four weddings, I don't know how you watched it, but I actually wanted him to get together with his best friend, one of his best friends.
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Yeah, and it was a little bit heartbreaking that he didn't feel the same way about Fiona as she did about him, and that that scene where she says to him, you know, how she feels, and uh and he he's choosing Carrie, the American, who is a little bit um loose with his love, you know.
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She she sort of tried everybody else out before realizing he was the one.
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Yeah, definitely.
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Well, that friendship with uh I can't remember her name now, but that I mean it's just pure unrequited love, right?
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It's a kind of a classic tale of of one-way love.
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Yeah, it's really hard.
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But I like that they sort of captured uh all kinds of love in that.
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Um obviously there's same-sex love as well, which is I mean, for its time, but it was kind of unspoken um love, right?
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A gay love between I think the two of the two of the the the male friends in the friendship group.
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And I that probably was at a time when you know people didn't really it wasn't as sort of openly comfortable to talk about those things, yeah, but it was there, and I quite like that they had it in there because yeah, and it was real love, like you felt the love, because then obviously not to pop spoiler, but but but when when at the funeral when he's reading out the poem Stop the Clocks, you feel that love, you feel their connection, and it's very real.
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So they even though maybe it wasn't something seen on screen, it wasn't something that they um kind of glossed over too much, like it felt like a very real relationship, proper marriage, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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That stop the clocks speech was is amazing.
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That's yeah, one of the highlights, you know, the highlights of the film, I think.
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Yeah, um and I guess that's also the other thing, it's a romantic comedy, but it does have some darker moments in it, the funeral.
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Um and and again, it's just an opportunity to see the connection between all the characters.
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So I think it has it has such heart to it.
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Yeah.
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Um so they I think they got the balance really, really right.
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Agreed, agreed.
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And I think uh what you said there about the American protagonist, the the love interest of Annie McDowell, I think that's really I think they must have done that very deliberately because I think I mean they're smart guys, right?
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The the guys who who the at working title, and I think they are thinking about an international audience as much as a British audience, and they're thinking an American love interest just can builds that bridge between the two markets or audiences, maybe is a better way for saying it.
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And that theme uh extends to their next film, which was Notting Hill.
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So that comes a couple of years later, and we have Julia Roberts who plays this glamorous, gorgeous film star who comes to the UK or comes to London to promote her film, and she stumbles upon by accident.
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Um, you had a word for this.
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Uh um Meat Cute.
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Yeah.
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So it's what is a meat cute?
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Explain it to us.
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A meat cute is basically the the mechanism whereby a um two characters will find each other in a film.
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So like maybe one's ordered, they both order coffee, but they've got each other's coffee orders wrong, and so they have to swap and then it it causes a conversation.
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So um in this one, she ends up in his uh in Hugh Grant's bookshop in Notting Hill.
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It always makes me laugh because he's a failing bookshop owner who still gets to live in a beautiful house in Notting Hill.
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I mean, this is that's another theme that we're gonna come to is like how can they afford these things?
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But yeah, sorry.
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Yeah, so um, so that that's their kind of meat cue, but also he spills his orange juice on her, so she has to come and get herself cleaned up, and then they have a joke about that because it sounds wrong.
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They laugh about that.
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Um, so yes, and and the thing is at the time Julia Roberts really was one of the biggest female stars in the world, so it wasn't it it was very realistic that she would um you know you felt the kind of awe of like Hugh Grant meeting Julia Roberts um as as a viewer.
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It it worked really well.
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Definitely, definitely, yeah, exactly.
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So we have this glamorous American uh love interest, we have the ordinary in brackets kind of bumbling Englishman because again, he basically plays the same character, right?
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I would say like it's just a slightly older version um a few years later.
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It could be literally the same character, frankly, from four weddings and funeral to this.
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And he has and he has another group of eclectic, interesting friends, yeah.
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Um, including a hilarious Reese Iffans as his Welsh flatmate, who's just um he's so quirky.
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Um that's an iconic, an iconic role, I think.
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That one, um he does such a good job.
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There's a uh if I speaking of iconic scenes, there's the one where the paparazzi are outside Hugh Grant's character's door, which is a blue door, and uh Reese Iffens is like uh he goes out to pick up the mail or so, or answer the door, and he does this posing in his underwear.
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It's very iconic.
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I I found out that that blue door is was Richard Curtis, the screenplay writer.
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Well, I think he directed it actually.
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That's his actual door.
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So um when the uh the team were trying to find locations for the film, yeah, they took a photo of his blue door and they're like, Oh, this would be great.
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And he was like, hang on a second, that's my door.
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Um you can use it for free.
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Yeah, and it's become like a real um destination for film tourists who come into London who love the film and they go to that door.
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I don't think it's blue anymore, but um I think I have the address if you if you want to pop down to it.
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Um it is uh 280 Westbourne Park Road.
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So there you go.
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And I I felt very much with that film, it was a love letter to Nottinghill in many ways as an area.
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There's a really beautiful scene where you see Nottinghill through the seasons, it's it's to show the passing of time, but it's it's Hugh Grant walking through the market stalls, um, and the seasons are changing.
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And it's um, yeah, it it felt very much like this was it was written by someone who loved that area.
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Um, and it's a very uh romantic view of the area.
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Um, I mean, now we know that it's somewhere that's almost completely unaffordable, especially for someone who owns a bookshop, uh someone who seems to have a failed uh one of his friends got a failed restaurant, you know.
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Goodness knows what Reese Iffans does to uh, you know, he just seems to hang around the flat and eat dodgy food from the fridge.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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No, I think you're absolutely right.
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And this goes to uh a point we were thinking about about London being a main character, right, in all these films or many of them.
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And I think Notting Hill is uh the main character in this film, and I think it's such an interesting area because at that time when they filmed it, I guess it was it was in its sort of gentrifying stage or phase rather, because previously it had been kind of where the Caribbean community has settled in London, and so that's why you have the Notting Hill Carnival, right?
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Every uh bank holiday in August, the Notting Hill Carnival sort of um takes over the the neighborhood.
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It's like you know, two million people, I think, go to it, and so you have that heritage there, and then it sort of gentrified in the late 80s, 90s, so you have a kind of character like Hugh Grant coming in, um, and then and as you say, this is a love letter to the to the area, and you've got Portobello Market, which is of course a huge tourist area, and you've got the shops, and it's just it's beautiful, right?
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And like the muse houses as well are just stunning, and then you go to now, as you say, like it's just off the chart.
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Who who can afford to live there?
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I have no idea.
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Um, unless unless you're earning a lot of money, but I suppose that's maybe something that we were saying goes through all the rom-coms, is that they are they show London and the UK beautifully, and even and this isn't a British rom-com, but the holiday is quite famous for its um depiction of um you know the countryside just outside, London, the cozy kind of cottage.
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And I suppose maybe it's it's a kind of a foreigner's idealised view of the UK, that that's part of the appeal of these films is that you're watching the characters, but you're also just watching the scenes, and then the thought that maybe one day you would go and try and find the front door in Notting Hill.
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Um, and and I guess also it helps with obviously these films were massive outside of the UK, and I think that that's I think sometimes we as Brits maybe struggle with the Hugh Grant personality and the the tropes of the different characters, you know, the quirky best friend or whatever.
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We might kind of cringe slightly at it because it's supposed to be a reflection of our society.
00:17:56.960 --> 00:18:11.599
Whereas I think you can um they were huge at elsewhere because you don't have that in a way that I could probably watch something like How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days and not cringe at Matthew McCogney and you know his sort of southern drawl, or you know, it just I love it.
00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:12.880
I just soak it all up.
00:18:12.960 --> 00:18:28.559
But um yeah, so obviously I think working title probably leaning into that, like you said, by having um Julia Roberts um play this main character and then moving on to something like Bridget Jones getting Rene Zellwigger to play, actually this time to play a Brit, which she did brilliantly.
00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:30.240
We have to her.
00:18:30.559 --> 00:18:31.359
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:32.960
I I think that's such a good point.
00:18:33.119 --> 00:18:35.599
When I look at these films, I sort of slightly cringe.
00:18:35.759 --> 00:18:39.440
When we get to love actually, I'll I'm gonna really you know go to town on that one.
00:18:39.759 --> 00:18:45.839
But that yeah, as Brits, we look at it, we're just like, oh god, like I think a lot of people are just like, oh, he's a bit of a posh twat, you know.
00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:48.480
Like I think that's how they would perceive him.
00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:55.599
Um that that sort of bumbling Brit is actually just like really cliche and not realistic.
00:18:55.759 --> 00:19:01.839
And uh their version I always find it with uh American films, there are two versions of of an English person.
00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:08.559
It's either you're a Hugh Grant character or you're like a sort of Jason Statham, like Cockney, you know, hard man.
00:19:08.640 --> 00:19:13.119
It's like those are the only two versions of English people that that they they have.
00:19:13.279 --> 00:19:15.519
So there's not a lot of nuance there, I guess.
00:19:15.839 --> 00:19:18.799
Interestingly though, I do think we also play quite a good villain.
00:19:19.119 --> 00:19:27.680
Because I think sometimes, I think sometimes they see the British accent and they think, you know, you must be really intelligent and therefore quite scheming and yeah.
00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:38.880
No, there's I I read an article about this, there's a whole thing about why, yeah, received pronunciation has historically been the accent of the baddie or the the the the evil genius in American films.
00:19:39.039 --> 00:19:44.640
When films were starting to be made, there was difficult relations between Britain and America in that sense.
00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:46.319
So yeah, I'll do a whole video on that.
00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:47.039
It's really fascinating.
00:19:47.200 --> 00:19:49.839
And so what they made us the enemy, so they made us the enemy.
00:19:50.160 --> 00:19:51.039
So interesting then.
00:19:51.119 --> 00:19:53.680
So really this is a this is a new creation then.
00:19:53.759 --> 00:20:06.559
The working title really did come up with a new type of Englishman, which is the um the bumbling, charming, wealthy, um yeah, yeah, definitely look at a very particular kind of world.
00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:14.400
Um they always live in beautiful properties and just locations.
00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:20.000
Yeah, so that links really nicely to our next film, which is Bridget Jones, and it's one of my favourites personally.
00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:23.519
I think it's the original is just a magnificent film.
00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:27.200
And Bridget Jones lives in in her own flat.
00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:30.319
Uh the location is literally in Borough Market.
00:20:30.400 --> 00:20:36.319
If you've been to London, you'll know that Borough Market is probably the most the best location for for food tourism, at least.
00:20:36.480 --> 00:20:40.720
Um, it's yeah, there's a food market there, it's so central.
00:20:40.960 --> 00:20:44.079
Um, and again, you're like, she's a she's a she works in TV.
00:20:44.240 --> 00:20:46.480
How is is one affording this flat?
00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:48.000
You have to suspend disbelief.
00:20:48.079 --> 00:20:54.160
It's the same with Kate Winslet in um she works, she does the wedding column in the holiday, and she has that beautiful cottage.
00:20:54.400 --> 00:20:56.400
Yeah, like it just doesn't add up.
00:20:56.559 --> 00:21:00.160
But let's go with it because none of us really want to see the reality, right?
00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:04.400
Which is the kind of slightly pokey accommodation.
00:21:04.640 --> 00:21:05.039
Exactly.
00:21:05.200 --> 00:21:22.319
Um, what you were saying there was that for uh Bridget Jones, they found an American actress in in uh Rennie Zellweger, uh Renee, Renee Zellweger, that's how I think her name is, and but she puts on what I think is one of the best English accents I've heard from an American actor.
00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:24.079
Yeah, you have to hand it to her.
00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:35.039
I I was a little bit upset when I first heard about the casting, only because Bridget Jones, especially at that time, was just the kind of every girl of Britain.
00:21:35.200 --> 00:21:41.680
It was the, you know, she was thought she was overweight, but she really wasn't, was quite down on herself, but was actually completely lovable.
00:21:41.759 --> 00:21:49.680
And I thought it's a shame, I felt at the time it was a shame they couldn't have cast her from the hundreds of amazing British actresses that we had.
00:21:50.319 --> 00:21:59.759
But obviously they did it for Global Appeal, and I do think that Rene Zelbiger carried it off really well, and um, and they cast the other two roles so perfectly with Colin.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:01.599
Firth um as Mr.
00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:04.880
Darcy, and that's obviously a nod to the fact that he had actually been Mr.
00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:11.759
Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, which is a very famous TV show, which had been on screen a few years before in the UK.
00:22:12.480 --> 00:22:14.400
And then to actually cast him as Mr.
00:22:14.559 --> 00:22:18.319
Darcy in Bridget was just a clever little uh aside, really.
00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:30.480
Well, then Hugh Grant just absolutely brilliant because he suddenly was a completely different version of the male lead that he'd been before.
00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:44.000
There was no bumbling, he was, I mean, terrible, awful person, but funny, so funny, and sort of unleashed from that um foppish role that he'd been put in for so many years.
00:22:44.240 --> 00:23:02.240
And you just kind of got the feeling that it was maybe closer to his personality because he's gone on to play villains, Paddington, and and and um I I think potentially the the original characters weren't so closely aligned to his personality, right?
00:23:02.319 --> 00:23:02.720
Right, right.
00:23:02.799 --> 00:23:06.559
Yeah, he's kind of like a bit of a rogue, a bit of a cad, very charming.
00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:08.880
She's got a real soft spot for him, hasn't she?
00:23:09.119 --> 00:23:15.920
Um Firth plays it so straight, he's just the perfect kind of counter to that.
00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:22.720
Well, he's the sort of like stiff upper lip traditional image of a of an English gentleman, you know?
00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:29.279
Kind of like can't express his feelings, um, is kind of emotionless, but like represses it all.
00:23:29.359 --> 00:23:34.720
But he you know, he he loves her, but he he can't tell her, and it's so frustrating to watch.
00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:36.640
Yeah, so frustrating.
00:23:38.160 --> 00:23:52.880
Um there's one thing that maybe, and we'll come to later on is kind of like looking back at these films and with with new eyes, you know, speaking in 2026 as we are, how do these would these films get made now?
00:23:53.039 --> 00:24:13.119
And one element of maybe the more uncomfortable side of Bridget Jones is the um the sort of I guess fat shaming or talking about weight so much, that's a real part of this film about you know um the comments that she gets, the the sexual harassment essentially in in some of the in some of the workplace situations.
00:24:13.519 --> 00:24:19.279
I guess that just I don't know, I I guess it it reflects badly on that period of time, maybe.
00:24:19.519 --> 00:24:22.160
Yeah, it is almost unwatchable at points.
00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:28.640
Um, and I think like I it's funny, I've I've watched all the other ones with my daughter, but this one I've kind of held back on.
00:24:28.720 --> 00:24:36.000
But then at the same time, maybe it would be useful to show her in the sense that look how things have come on and look at the progress we've made.
00:24:36.160 --> 00:24:46.079
Because I mean, I remember watching it when it first came out, and I wasn't struck by any of that, which kind of shocks me now because I do see it so clearly.
00:24:46.559 --> 00:25:06.000
Um but it was definitely you know, the the it came from a book, Bridget Jones came from columns that were written and needed so that then became a book, and at that time it was the 90s, and people were obsessed with weight, and it was like thin is beautiful, and um, and so people did count calories and um constantly weigh themselves.
00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:12.400
So it was it was reflective of a time, and I suppose we just have to be grateful that that isn't how we see things now.
00:25:12.559 --> 00:25:18.480
And I suppose what's lovely is they have gone on to do other films um and obviously moved away from that.
00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:30.079
Um, and she's just kept the kind of ditzyness, which is something that people have always loved as the Bridget Jones character, but um has lost the kind of self-hatred, maybe.
00:25:30.319 --> 00:25:30.880
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:34.160
Yeah, I think there are there are four films now, right?
00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:42.079
Like the there was one quite recently where she uh she has a little fling with a younger man who's played by Leo Woodall, who's a fantastic actor.
00:25:42.240 --> 00:25:49.279
He stars in One Day, which is uh the Netflix uh version of the book, um, and it's superb in that.
00:25:49.680 --> 00:26:02.960
I don't know if that's a rom com as such, but it's you know it's a drama and beautiful when they kind of maybe he's an heir to Hugh Grant's throne as kind of the lead in these kinds of rom coms.
00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:11.359
Yeah, because we've had it's just been a vast wasteland since uh love actually uh you know, did that kind of cap it off?
00:26:11.440 --> 00:26:22.079
I felt like it felt like they were on a roll, and then for some reason, and whether it's just that Hugh Grant didn't want to play those characters anymore and no one was able to kind of step up and take the place.
00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:27.680
I think actually, although he makes it look really easy, I think it's actually a really difficult role to play.
00:26:28.000 --> 00:27:01.440
Um, so I I don't know, like you said, it's very uh who who has come up to take his place, so continue, or maybe they're just a reflection of a time that was very optimistic and um you know it's sort of new labour came in, and I think there was a real pride in Britain and you know, like like I said, a wave of optimism, and they were made against the backdrop of that, and then we had some really sort of tricky times as a country that maybe we're still working through, and and maybe there hasn't been the confidence to make something like that again.
00:27:02.240 --> 00:27:03.359
That is a really good point, yeah.
00:27:03.519 --> 00:27:06.480
Not the confidence, and then maybe there's just not the appetite for that kind of a film.
00:27:06.640 --> 00:27:08.559
Yeah people but maybe they will be now.
00:27:08.640 --> 00:27:19.359
Maybe it's you know what you kind of uh you try to escape reality with with film and music that maybe times are as they are quite difficult, and maybe it's sort of an escapism.
00:27:19.519 --> 00:27:22.240
Um you know, a soppy love story uh might be what we want.
00:27:22.480 --> 00:27:28.400
One last thing about uh British Jones is it I think it delivers one of the greatest fight scenes of all time.
00:27:29.200 --> 00:27:41.359
And there's uh so it's it's between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, and they're in a Greek restaurant, and it's just two English gentlemen who have no ability of fighting, they have no idea what they're doing.
00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:45.279
So it's really just it's just so pathetic, but hilarious.
00:27:45.519 --> 00:27:56.880
And um, I was introduced to a new uh term, which is a needle drop, which is kind of like when uh a song comes on that suddenly changes the atmosphere of a scene in a film.
00:27:57.039 --> 00:28:14.480
And I think this is a great example of I think they they go through the window of the Greek restaurant and suddenly Gloria Gaynor's It's Raining Men hits, and they're trying to fight in the street, and it's just there's like suddenly that song takes that scene to another level, it just elevates it completely.
00:28:14.640 --> 00:28:20.720
Um, I think it's fantastic, and they're I love the way they're as they're fighting through the restaurant, they're sort of apologizing to the diners.
00:28:20.960 --> 00:28:22.160
I'm so sorry, so sorry.
00:28:23.039 --> 00:28:32.720
Um genius, and like I think uh they start singing happy birthday to uh one of the people in the restaurant, and so they stop and they're singing happy birthday, what's his name?
00:28:33.200 --> 00:28:35.200
Because they don't know who who they're talking to.
00:28:35.519 --> 00:28:40.079
Ready to start up again, and I think the actors themselves took control of that.
00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:50.079
I think they said, Don't try and choreograph us, you know, we're too middle class English gents, we wouldn't have ever thrown a punch before.
00:28:50.400 --> 00:29:18.160
So don't make us look too slick, and they kind of rift, and actually, it's yeah, that's it's genius, and you're right, it's a real and in fact, music is quite big in Bridget Jones because then there's the other great scene where um she sings all by myself, yeah, um, and she's alone in her apartment, and and that that again such a pivotal moment because you just really feel her pain of just being on her own again and it all going wrong for her.
00:29:18.240 --> 00:29:19.359
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:29:19.839 --> 00:29:24.400
It makes you love her so much, it's such a brilliant um yeah, start to the film.
00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:25.279
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:29:33.039 --> 00:29:40.079
Okay, so we're gonna now move on to probably the most famous British rom-com, Love Actually.
00:29:40.319 --> 00:29:43.119
It's also, I would say, the most divisive.
00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:44.480
Is that fair to say?
00:29:44.880 --> 00:29:50.160
Well, didn't you send me something that said that it was the most popular rom-com, which I was surprised at?
00:29:50.559 --> 00:30:00.160
Yeah, I think there is a tradition in the US of watching it uh over Christmas, because it is a Christmas film, so it has that seasonality.
00:30:00.559 --> 00:30:02.079
We always watch the holiday.
00:30:02.319 --> 00:30:05.039
Um that's the third time you've mentioned the holiday, by the way.
00:30:05.119 --> 00:30:06.079
Do you want to talk about the holiday?
00:30:06.160 --> 00:30:10.880
Do you want to I know it's not a British rom-com, but it is set in Britain for some of it.
00:30:11.119 --> 00:30:13.279
And uh and it's just I just love it.
00:30:13.519 --> 00:30:26.079
But um, but no, so maybe it's that thing of like it's just a tradition rather than and and maybe like you were saying, like about being able to suspend the disbelief a bit more.
00:30:26.240 --> 00:30:34.000
Because I think this is one where I don't cringe so much during Ossi Hill in Four Weddings, but I do really cringe at love actually.
00:30:34.319 --> 00:30:35.519
Yeah, me too.
00:30:36.240 --> 00:30:40.960
So if you haven't watched it, it's um I guess there are there are many love stories.
00:30:41.119 --> 00:30:43.519
I don't know how many there are, maybe ten, I can't remember.
00:30:43.680 --> 00:30:47.599
And they kind of they evolve as the film goes on in a different direction.
00:30:47.839 --> 00:30:52.160
Some of them interweave, crossover, some of them are just completely separate.
00:30:52.319 --> 00:30:56.319
Um, some of them are sweet, some of them are cringe, some of them are problematic.
00:30:56.559 --> 00:30:59.279
Um most of them are problematic, in my opinion.
00:30:59.599 --> 00:31:09.519
Um and it basically has an ensemble cast of British actors, British and Irish actors, because you've got um Liam Neeson as well.
00:31:09.759 --> 00:31:12.160
So you've got Hugh Grant, there he is again.
00:31:12.319 --> 00:31:14.319
Uh playing the Prime Minister.
00:31:14.640 --> 00:31:16.640
Playing the Prime Minister, yeah.
00:31:16.960 --> 00:31:19.279
You've got um, who else you got?
00:31:19.519 --> 00:31:24.799
Emma um Emma Thompson who's married to Alan Rickman, um Alan Rickman.
00:31:25.119 --> 00:31:26.000
And their storyline.
00:31:26.079 --> 00:31:32.559
I think that one maybe is um has one of the more poignant moments of the film I can kind of I feel like I can relate to.
00:31:32.640 --> 00:31:47.200
She finds out he's having an affair, and she finds out really sadly on Christmas Day, because she's expected to get one present, which she's seen that he's bought, and she gets a Joni Mitchell CD, and she goes off and has a moment by herself, and it is literal heartbreak to watch really difficult.
00:31:47.920 --> 00:31:54.880
That's really hard, especially because Emma Emma uh Thompson comes across in life as such a lovely person in the film as such a lovely person.
00:31:54.960 --> 00:31:56.319
It's kind of yeah, somewhat hard.
00:31:56.880 --> 00:32:00.079
It's just because her husband's fallen for like the young hot thing at work.
00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:01.359
I mean, it's just cringe.
00:32:01.599 --> 00:32:02.880
It's and it's cliched, right?
00:32:02.960 --> 00:32:09.680
It's the most cliche, and I suppose that's quite clever putting such a I hate to say it, but like a relatable storyline uh into it.
00:32:10.079 --> 00:32:10.240
Yeah.
00:32:10.480 --> 00:32:20.480
Um the one that I I dislike the most is the Kira Knightley Andrew Lincoln story, where Kira Knightley um marries her partner.
00:32:21.200 --> 00:32:48.559
And yeah, and Andrew Lincoln's is his best friend, and he he he has this like unrequited love for her, and he confesses it with the scene where he it stands outside her door and has cards um you know saying his feelings, yeah, and he he sort of takes you know the cards away and and tells her the message, and it's like even though his best friend, who's just married this woman, is in in the back, you can hear him.
00:32:48.720 --> 00:32:51.599
Yeah, a terrible betrayal, in my opinion.
00:32:51.839 --> 00:32:58.960
Yeah, and it's when he you realize like on their wedding day he was in charge of filming and he just films her in close-up the whole time.
00:32:59.279 --> 00:33:02.799
Very creepy, yeah, very creepy, yeah.
00:33:03.039 --> 00:33:06.799
I mean, I do wonder whether there's any actor that could have made it non-cree.
00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:08.000
I I don't know.
00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:12.880
I think it and and it makes you sort of reflect back on the other films and think, were there creepy elements there?
00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:14.480
But I no, I don't I don't think so.
00:33:14.559 --> 00:33:16.559
I think they they got away with it.
00:33:16.640 --> 00:33:19.839
It just um this one just slightly lost their way.
00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:27.039
I mean, the only re really re redeeming part of this film is the um arrivals uh footage.
00:33:27.519 --> 00:33:30.240
That is just pure joy and love.
00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:31.599
Yeah, yeah.
00:33:31.839 --> 00:33:35.839
So that comes from Richard Curtis, who I think directed it.
00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:38.720
He was stuck at LA Airport and he observed it.
00:33:39.039 --> 00:33:45.759
I think he was waiting for like a package or something, and he observed it in LA Airport, and he thought, Oh you know, isn't it amazing all these like stories in one place?
00:33:46.079 --> 00:33:53.680
And he saw like the love and um the the the happiness of it all, and he so that's when he was like, Oh, that would be a great opening for a film.
00:33:54.000 --> 00:34:09.119
And it is, it's genuinely a brilliant opening to a film, and and I think the the concept in itself, having a kind of Christmas-based film with lots of interweaving love stories is absolutely brilliant, but for some reason they just haven't stood the test of time.
00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:13.760
Um, so uh yeah, I I struggle to watch it now.
00:34:14.079 --> 00:34:15.599
Yeah, definitely.
00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:28.320
Uh, there is one other quite good scene, it's a needle drop, uh, as we were talking about earlier, is when um Hugh Grant playing the the Prime Minister, he sort of tells the American president where to go.
00:34:28.400 --> 00:34:38.960
Uh this real defiant moment, and then um he starts dancing to uh the Pointer Sisters Jump for My Love, and he does this like dance through um Downing Street, yeah.
00:34:39.119 --> 00:34:46.480
And allegedly, like when he saw it in the script, Hugh Grant, he was like, Oh god, oh god, I hate doing that.
00:34:46.639 --> 00:34:51.039
And so he did it under duress somewhat, but I think it came out really well.
00:34:51.119 --> 00:35:00.320
Um it's a really famous scene, and it's funny because the not the dancing, but the standing up to the US president is used all the time if you listen to political podcasts.
00:35:00.400 --> 00:35:04.320
They're like, why can't he have a Hugh Grant moment and just stand up to Trump?
00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:16.960
You know, they people use it a lot, so it's yeah, I think a lot of these films have got cultural references in them, um, moments like that that are then used and talked about in wider conversations.
00:35:17.119 --> 00:35:25.440
So there is a kind of if you haven't seen the film these films, um, you do kind of you don't necessarily understand, you didn't get the references, do you?
00:35:25.519 --> 00:35:26.800
So yeah, definitely.
00:35:27.119 --> 00:35:29.440
I think there's so much we could say about love action.
00:35:29.599 --> 00:35:38.400
I think we should do start doing like just one long episode about about films or or you know certain TV shows and just really do a deep dive into them.
00:35:38.800 --> 00:35:50.239
What you were saying there about the cultural reference thing, which I think is why you know, if you're listening and you haven't watched any of these films, it's worth watching just to kind of get the cultural references, if you're especially if you're living in the UK.
00:35:50.480 --> 00:35:58.320
A film that is sort of underrated on that level is Sliding Doors, which I think we can consider to be a rom-com of sorts.
00:35:58.800 --> 00:36:05.199
Um and the concept is that uh the main character, I've forgotten who it is, um Gwyneth Powshow.
00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:06.719
Gwynneth Power, thank you.
00:36:06.800 --> 00:36:24.320
Uh, formerly married to Chris Martin of Coplay, she runs down to the tube and the doors are closing, and then in one version she gets on the tube, and in the other version she doesn't make it on the tube, and then the story splits into two, and we see like what would have happened in both ones.
00:36:24.639 --> 00:36:30.000
And we use that phrase it's a sliding doors moment in in everyday conversation, right?
00:36:30.079 --> 00:36:34.159
To talk about oh, like how your path could have gone in in different directions.
00:36:34.320 --> 00:36:34.719
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:34.880 --> 00:36:39.599
Um, and it's really it's quite quite a cool concept, I think, and makes her a really good film.
00:36:40.079 --> 00:36:43.519
Yeah, and the uh the leading man in that was also in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:49.679
So it's what again, what you're saying about the characters appearing or the actors appearing throughout.
00:36:50.239 --> 00:36:50.480
Yeah.
00:36:50.719 --> 00:37:01.360
I think looking back at some of these films now, I do wonder if the fact that we now have technology, the technology that we have now, makes them impossible to have been made.
00:37:01.440 --> 00:37:07.679
I mean, Four Weddings and a Funeral, he he basically only meets up with the Andy McDowell character at weddings.
00:37:07.760 --> 00:37:25.920
They have no contact outside of it, other than one time that he's shopping to buy her a wedding present and she happens to be in the shop with so it's all coincidences, which kind of draws out the love story in a way that maybe you would have, if you know, if you'd sought numbers, you would have wrapped it up much quicker.
00:37:26.400 --> 00:37:26.800
Definitely.
00:37:27.280 --> 00:37:33.360
And and I think because that's I mean, there's a lot of miscommunication which which helps in love stories, doesn't it?
00:37:33.440 --> 00:37:43.280
They're kind of you know, they have to kind of have this connection, the meet cute moment, and then they have to have some kind of miscommunication that means that they have these sort of lonely moments.
00:37:43.679 --> 00:37:49.920
The Notting Hill walking through the the uh the market looking really upset, and then they come back together again.
00:37:50.079 --> 00:37:58.320
And I guess if you have a mobile and you can just exchange a contact number, then you don't have as much of that um jeopardy.
00:37:58.960 --> 00:38:06.079
So I wonder whether that has played a part that since having this new technology, we just don't have these these kind of films anymore.
00:38:06.159 --> 00:38:10.719
There's an innocence about them, and therefore that also plays into why there's such nostalgia.
00:38:11.039 --> 00:38:11.440
Yeah.
00:38:11.679 --> 00:38:13.039
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
00:38:13.360 --> 00:38:19.039
We sort of referenced the nostalgia earlier with four weddings, seeing the old cars, the old roads, how things used to be.
00:38:19.280 --> 00:38:22.159
And I think we we do lean towards that, don't we?
00:38:22.480 --> 00:38:30.239
Particularly you know, as times are a little bit strange now, looking back at those times without AI, without mobile technology, like, oh, look at the simplicity of it all.
00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:35.519
But like you said, like the complication of like, you know, you have to have these coincidental meetings.
00:38:35.599 --> 00:38:38.159
Um I don't know, there was something about that.
00:38:38.239 --> 00:38:38.639
I don't know.
00:38:38.719 --> 00:38:43.519
I think it's because that's the era that we grew up in, so that's why we are drawn to it so much.
00:38:43.760 --> 00:38:48.800
Yeah, there's one modern version, uh, modern version of a rom com that I really love, which is Ryah Lane.
00:38:49.039 --> 00:38:53.119
Um, it came out a couple of years ago, and it's uh based in Peckham.
00:38:53.679 --> 00:39:00.159
And um the the character, it's it's it's more kind of it's yeah, a bit more sort of contemporary London.
00:39:00.320 --> 00:39:08.239
Um, the actors are are black, and that's you know the level of diversity that none of the other uh films achieved.
00:39:08.320 --> 00:39:10.559
I mean, they're very mono-cultural, right?
00:39:10.639 --> 00:39:15.519
They're very white middle class experiences, whereas this is a you know more diverse.
00:39:15.679 --> 00:39:24.639
Um, so I think but it's it's also really beautifully written and it's charming and witty, and uh yeah, definitely one to check out if if people haven't seen that one.
00:39:24.800 --> 00:39:27.760
Um I'm trying to think of there any other kind of romance.
00:39:27.920 --> 00:39:32.159
We talked about One Day, which is a really lovely Netflix TV show.
00:39:32.480 --> 00:39:33.119
That is lovely.
00:39:33.199 --> 00:39:35.440
I wonder if it has as much of the comedy in it.
00:39:35.679 --> 00:39:40.880
Um I think like those original ones that you were talking about, there there is a line of comedy that runs through.
00:39:41.119 --> 00:39:45.840
Whereas I feel like that maybe leans more into sort of the romance drama.
00:39:46.239 --> 00:39:57.760
Um I guess that's also interesting that a lot of a lot of money has now gone into TV shows that are sort of um, you know, eight episodes long rather than trying to tie something up in an hour and a half, two hours.
00:39:58.000 --> 00:39:58.320
Yeah.
00:39:58.639 --> 00:40:02.400
Um, do you have a personal favourite of the ones that we've discussed?
00:40:02.800 --> 00:40:03.360
Wow.
00:40:03.599 --> 00:40:05.199
Uh huge question.
00:40:05.360 --> 00:40:06.239
Um, do you know what?
00:40:06.320 --> 00:40:09.199
I'm gonna I'm gonna hold my uh vote just for a second.
00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:15.920
I want to share just a some statistics with you before we get to it because it it's not just us that that like rom coms.
00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:23.519
Um there was a you gov poll in 2026, so earlier this year, it said that 43% of Brits either like or love rom coms.
00:40:23.679 --> 00:40:24.960
That's almost half.
00:40:25.119 --> 00:40:26.400
So that's huge, I think.
00:40:26.960 --> 00:40:30.239
Um it skews mostly female, obviously.
00:40:30.400 --> 00:40:34.079
Uh well not obviously, but I could have predicted that.
00:40:34.239 --> 00:40:37.840
56% of women are positive about rom-coms compared to 29% of men.
00:40:37.920 --> 00:40:45.679
Um, whether those men are being honest or not, because I think it's one of those things where like, you know, the the macho guy is just like, you know, I'm not into rom-coms, I'm into action films.
00:40:45.760 --> 00:40:47.679
It's like, well, is that true?
00:40:47.760 --> 00:40:50.159
Uh or are you uh just not telling us?
00:40:50.320 --> 00:40:54.719
And also interesting, like older Brits are less into rom-coms than younger uh generations.
00:40:54.800 --> 00:41:03.199
So 30% of over 65s like rom coms, whereas 44% of 19 to 24 year olds, or 18 to 24 year olds, like them.
00:41:03.440 --> 00:41:05.599
So I think it's interesting.
00:41:05.840 --> 00:41:09.519
Yeah, the younger generation are a bit older and a bit more cynical.
00:41:10.559 --> 00:41:11.440
Yeah, maybe.
00:41:11.519 --> 00:41:12.480
Yeah, maybe.
00:41:12.719 --> 00:41:14.800
Um, do you want to know the top three?
00:41:14.960 --> 00:41:18.239
Uh uh sort of Britain's favourite rom-coms.
00:41:18.639 --> 00:41:20.880
So this is this is this is Britain.
00:41:21.440 --> 00:41:24.320
Well, no, it's British people's favourite rom coms.
00:41:24.480 --> 00:41:26.320
Okay, so it could be an American rom com.
00:41:26.559 --> 00:41:29.119
We might have mentioned all three of these today.
00:41:29.440 --> 00:41:32.239
Um number three, Bridget Jones.
00:41:32.800 --> 00:41:39.920
Okay, number two, the holiday, and number one with with 20% love actually.
00:41:40.559 --> 00:41:42.079
Oh, there we are.
00:41:42.480 --> 00:41:45.760
Because I think you'd sent me that, and I was I was a bit surprised by that.
00:41:45.840 --> 00:41:51.519
So obviously, other people you know can see past all the things that annoy us.
00:41:51.840 --> 00:41:52.719
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:41:52.880 --> 00:41:55.920
Okay, so what is your personal favourite film?
00:41:56.559 --> 00:42:01.920
Um, I think as much as I do love the holiday, I think it will always be for weddings.
00:42:02.159 --> 00:42:09.039
Um, I think it's just a genuinely beautiful film for all the friendships and the highs and the lows.
00:42:09.199 --> 00:42:17.280
And yeah, if I if I could choose to make a cup of tea and go and watch one now, that would be that would be the one that I would be sitting on the sofa with this afternoon.
00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:18.559
Fair enough.
00:42:18.639 --> 00:42:19.920
Yeah, it's yeah, brilliant.
00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:21.039
It really does stand up.
00:42:21.199 --> 00:42:23.199
Um, I'm gonna go with Bridget Jones.
00:42:23.360 --> 00:42:28.559
I think the original Bridget Jones is iconic, uh, it's funny, there's some brilliant scenes.
00:42:28.639 --> 00:42:30.400
I think she's such a likable character.
00:42:30.559 --> 00:42:36.000
Uh, Hugh Grant, I think, yeah, like as the slightly more roguish character, I loved.
00:42:36.400 --> 00:42:41.039
Um, and yeah, just it's in it, it's got a great depiction of London as well.
00:42:41.119 --> 00:42:42.960
I yeah, I'm a big fan of that one.
00:42:43.119 --> 00:42:46.320
Less so the sequels, but the first one really stands up for me.
00:42:46.480 --> 00:42:47.280
Yes, 100%.
00:42:47.840 --> 00:42:48.639
Good choices.
00:42:48.960 --> 00:42:54.000
Annie, I think that sort of wraps up our conversation about rom coms for today, but I think there's so much more we could talk about.
00:42:54.239 --> 00:43:02.239
So if you guys, well, I think the main question is to ask uh our audience what is their favourite rom com, British rom com, let us know.
00:43:02.400 --> 00:43:04.800
Put it in the comments uh of this podcast.
00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:06.719
Um, we would love to know.
00:43:06.880 --> 00:43:14.239
Um, also, if you are enjoying this podcast, we have a little request, which is for you to rate it on the platform that you're listening.
00:43:14.320 --> 00:43:26.000
So if it's Spotify, Apple Music, uh, YouTube, wherever you're listening, we would really, really um appreciate uh a rating and review because it helps us to find our community, our audience.
00:43:26.159 --> 00:43:31.360
Um and yeah, we're still just a little podcast at the moment, but hopefully we'd love to grow uh with your help.
00:43:31.519 --> 00:43:33.519
So thank you so much uh in advance.
00:43:33.599 --> 00:43:36.480
Um any little comments you have as well, uh we would appreciate.
00:43:36.639 --> 00:43:39.039
Um but Annie, I think that's it for this week.
00:43:39.199 --> 00:43:40.400
Um how's it been?
00:43:40.800 --> 00:43:43.840
We're we're sort of apart, we're we're not together today.
00:43:44.079 --> 00:43:44.800
How's it been?
00:43:45.679 --> 00:43:48.639
Uh uh well, I miss us going and having lunch now.
00:43:49.119 --> 00:43:50.480
Yeah, I miss my free lunch.
00:43:50.639 --> 00:43:52.400
Yeah, my delicious, healthy free lunch.
00:43:52.639 --> 00:43:55.760
So uh we'll try and get together again, maybe not next week, but the week after.
00:43:55.920 --> 00:43:59.280
We have a special interview coming next week, our first guest.
00:43:59.519 --> 00:44:02.880
So um I will tease no more, but uh yeah, looking forward to that.
00:44:03.199 --> 00:44:03.679
Exciting.
00:44:03.920 --> 00:44:04.320
Brilliant.
00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:05.920
Thank you so much for listening, guys.
00:44:06.159 --> 00:44:07.599
Take care, thanks for watching.
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:04.080
Hello and welcome to another episode of a Really British podcast with me Tom.
00:00:04.320 --> 00:00:05.440
And me Annie.
00:00:05.679 --> 00:00:09.759
And today, Annie, we are talking about British rom-coms.
00:00:10.080 --> 00:00:11.519
I think it's your specialist subject.
00:00:11.759 --> 00:00:13.119
I've dressed appropriately.
00:00:13.359 --> 00:00:15.599
You have amour, which of course.
00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:17.199
Love, yes, exactly.
00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:26.239
Now, if I think if you were to go on Mastermind, I think this would be your specialist subject because you you do have an in-depth knowledge of the genre.
00:00:26.559 --> 00:00:28.079
Well, a love of it, I would say.
00:00:28.239 --> 00:00:28.719
I love it.
00:00:29.199 --> 00:00:37.439
Although looking through it, it's funny, I thought, gosh, I haven't actually spent the time to sit and watch any of these recently, but they are, I mean, I have seen them hundreds of times in the past.
00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:44.000
But yeah, I'm it made me want to go back and just have a kind of wet, rainy Sunday afternoon and just do a marathon of them.
00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:44.320
Yeah.
00:00:44.479 --> 00:00:46.079
Oh, that sounds quite dreamy, actually.
00:00:46.240 --> 00:00:46.880
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:47.600
I could I could have.
00:00:47.920 --> 00:00:54.799
Well, I think a couple of episodes ago we talked about four weddings and a funeral, and that will feature quite highly in in this episode.
00:00:54.880 --> 00:00:58.320
But before we get on to all that good stuff, um, you've been on holiday.
00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:01.039
Listeners will uh have said, Where did Annie go?
00:01:01.119 --> 00:01:02.640
And I was like, look, she's coming back.
00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:05.439
She went to Greece for a well-earned holiday.
00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:06.079
How was it?
00:01:06.319 --> 00:01:08.159
Oh, it was glorious, thank you.
00:01:08.319 --> 00:01:11.359
I feel recharged, revived, ready to go.
00:01:11.599 --> 00:01:12.400
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:01:12.560 --> 00:01:19.120
You sent some amazing photos over of like, you know, sort of beautiful blue seas and delicious Greek food.
00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:20.000
It looked amazing.
00:01:20.239 --> 00:01:22.719
The sea definitely spoils you for other seas.
00:01:23.359 --> 00:01:25.840
It's just the water is incredible and it's so warm.
00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:27.280
People say it's like a bath.
00:01:27.359 --> 00:01:30.640
It's it's a bit more refreshing than a bath, which is what you want.
00:01:31.359 --> 00:01:33.599
But it's yeah, it's so beautiful.
00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:34.879
Nice, nice, nice.
00:01:34.959 --> 00:01:35.599
Well, welcome back.
00:01:35.760 --> 00:01:40.959
Although you did say just before we started um recording, you were like, I could do with another holiday to get over my holiday.
00:01:41.359 --> 00:01:45.519
Because something about getting back into life once you return, it's just it's hard, isn't it?
00:01:45.599 --> 00:01:47.599
You need a while to click back into get.
00:01:48.079 --> 00:01:49.840
To wrap back up, how have you been?
00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:52.640
You've been a busy I've been a busy bee.
00:01:52.959 --> 00:01:58.959
Yeah, so yesterday I spent a very awesome day in my publisher's office uh signing books.
00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:04.159
So for those of you who who don't know, I've got um a couple of books being published on the September the 24th.
00:02:04.319 --> 00:02:06.879
And so I went in to do like the book signing uh thing.
00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:10.879
But Annie, as you know, like my uh my handwriting is like a six-year-old child.
00:02:11.039 --> 00:02:14.319
So I had a real fear about kind of what it's gonna look like.
00:02:14.479 --> 00:02:17.120
Um, but yeah, I it we got a good Sharpie.
00:02:17.360 --> 00:02:19.680
I managed to to nail my hand, my signature.
00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:21.599
I love the fact you got a Sharpie.
00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:31.919
But it was so surreal, like doing that thing of like I had a big stack of books and I was like signing them and passing them down the line, and yeah, it just felt very, very real all of a sudden.
00:02:32.080 --> 00:02:38.000
And we did some like video footage and um the office is uh in central London, London Bridge area.
00:02:38.080 --> 00:02:41.360
So you get these amazing 360 views of you know, you can see St.
00:02:41.439 --> 00:02:45.599
Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, like Big Ben.
00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:46.319
You see all of it.
00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:48.000
The shard is literally right there.
00:02:48.560 --> 00:02:50.479
Amazing, yeah, it's pretty epic.
00:02:50.719 --> 00:02:51.840
A proper London Day.
00:02:52.319 --> 00:03:04.479
Well, it's funny, tying it to uh to rom coms, there is a there's a famous line in Notting Hill where um Hugh Grant says that if you can find an unsigned copy of a book, why also?
00:03:04.879 --> 00:03:06.400
They're worth a fortune.
00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:14.400
I was thinking I'm like devaluing each copy as I sign it, as I graffiti my handwriting on it.
00:03:14.719 --> 00:03:17.120
You're not okay.
00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:23.039
So uh after the little sting, we're gonna get into our conversation about British rom-coms.
00:03:24.159 --> 00:03:28.159
Welcome to a really British podcast with Annie and Tom.
00:03:29.360 --> 00:03:30.879
Okay, so let's get started.
00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:36.159
I mean, the genre really exploded in 1994 with the release of Four Weddings and a Funeral.
00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:43.120
And, you know, when I look back at it, I think there are three main protagonists that are largely responsible for British rom coms.
00:03:43.199 --> 00:03:49.520
And that's Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, who started Working Title, uh, which is the film and TV production company.
00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:56.159
Uh, they were the people behind Four Weddings in a Funeral, and then a guy called Richard Curtis who wrote the screenplay.
00:03:56.319 --> 00:04:01.520
Um, and I think without these three guys, we wouldn't have British rom coms.
00:04:01.599 --> 00:04:07.360
Um, if you look at the list of working title films that they've done since 1985, it's extraordinary.
00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:13.120
It's like uh Four Weddings in a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones Diary, About a Boy.
00:04:13.360 --> 00:04:15.120
Um, you the list goes on.
00:04:15.199 --> 00:04:15.919
I mean, it's amazing.
00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:20.319
They did other films like Senna, uh, Frost Nixon, Sean of the Dead.
00:04:20.480 --> 00:04:25.439
Um, they really were kind of like the pioneers of this genre, right?
00:04:26.079 --> 00:04:36.240
Yes, and then they found a brilliant actor who was able to bring these parts to life and and were just a lethal combination, really.
00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:39.759
Hugh Grant, right.
00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:42.720
So it all starts with four weddings and a funeral.
00:04:42.800 --> 00:04:44.639
I think that's the the the first one.
00:04:44.720 --> 00:04:46.800
It's 1994, I think that came out.
00:04:47.279 --> 00:04:52.560
And Hugh Grant plays the bumbling Brit, right?
00:04:53.519 --> 00:04:58.720
I mean, so we've talked about this film before, and I mean, like, what what do you remember from it?
00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:00.720
What why is it such an iconic film?
00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:06.720
Um, well, I think it just lifts the lid of a certain very privileged friendship group.
00:05:06.879 --> 00:05:14.399
Um, and you see the characters through four weddings and a funeral, just as it says on the tin, and you see the relationships develop.
00:05:14.480 --> 00:05:25.120
And I think what's lovely and what a lot of these films are actually, they they're multi-they've got multiple storylines going through and different characters that you you become quite attached to.
00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:45.040
Um, I mean, it's a love story as much about Hugh Grant falling in love with Andy McDowell, the American glamorous uh woman who appears at a number of these weddings, as it is about his friends and um uh this great group of pals who see each other through life's ups and downs.
00:05:45.199 --> 00:05:50.800
Um and there's just a lot of there's a lot of love in it, a love for friends, a love for romantic love.
00:05:51.120 --> 00:05:54.879
Um and then the same in Notting Hill and and Love Actually as well.
00:05:55.199 --> 00:06:01.759
Yeah, I think it also captures that season of life where every weekend is a wedding.
00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:06.560
So you're in your kind of like 20s, 30s, and you know, everyone you know is getting married.
00:06:06.639 --> 00:06:10.720
And so there are so many weddings that pepper a summer usually in the UK.
00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:13.040
So yeah, you're seeing each other each weekend.
00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:20.720
And I think you you referenced it in the podcast we had before where you said uh by the end of it, you didn't know whose wedding you were going to.
00:06:20.800 --> 00:06:22.319
It was like, who is it today?
00:06:22.639 --> 00:06:29.199
I know there's a scene where he literally looks down at the order of service and says, Who is it who's getting married today?
00:06:30.079 --> 00:06:35.279
I think what else I think what really defined four weddings was just the humour.
00:06:35.360 --> 00:06:38.720
It was such and it it it still gets me now.
00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:56.800
Like I I watched it fairly recently, and although the kind of images look old, like when they're driving in the car, I mean the cars look so old, the motorway looks so old, but it's like empty, yeah, yeah, yeah, empty, and like cars are tiny and they're you know, but the humour is still superb.
00:06:56.959 --> 00:07:04.480
Um, and and I just think that it kind of set a precedent as well for like what this genre of film needs to be.
00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:06.720
It needs to have love, but it needs to be witty.
00:07:06.800 --> 00:07:10.959
You need to have little jokes peppering it that are that are brilliant.
00:07:11.120 --> 00:07:21.279
So it even starts with sorry, it even starts with one of the best scenes to open a film I've ever seen, which is an alarm clock going off, and I think he sleeps through it.
00:07:21.519 --> 00:07:22.800
Yeah, he snoozes it.
00:07:23.040 --> 00:07:27.199
He snoozes it and then eventually wakes up and realizes he's gonna be late for this wedding.
00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:37.120
And the opening dialogue is just swear words, uh F words, F words, F words, um, all the way to the church um where they have to get to, which is is brilliant.
00:07:37.439 --> 00:07:42.319
Yeah, no, it's it's it's a genius opening and really sets you up for the film.
00:07:42.480 --> 00:07:46.800
And then it's a bit of a a joke that runs through the entire film.
00:07:47.120 --> 00:07:53.600
So at the end, when it's his wedding, they all joke that he's late, but they've they've changed the clock so that actually he's early.
00:07:53.920 --> 00:07:54.560
Right.
00:07:55.040 --> 00:07:56.240
Nice, yeah.
00:07:56.480 --> 00:08:05.920
And I think there's a lot of humour, and and the um the the classic Rowan Atkinson cameo the vicar who gets every line wrong, the holy spigot.
00:08:06.240 --> 00:08:09.839
The holy spigot, uh, take this awful wedded wife.
00:08:10.319 --> 00:08:13.040
Um, yeah, he's really like he just he's very Mr.
00:08:13.199 --> 00:08:13.439
Bean.
00:08:13.519 --> 00:08:15.600
I mean, I can't detach Rowan Atkinson from Mr.
00:08:15.759 --> 00:08:16.160
Bean.
00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:20.560
Yeah, and it's kind of that similar kind of bumbling um character.
00:08:20.720 --> 00:08:27.839
And I think so, yeah, that that sets off uh a kind of tradition of um bumbling Brits.
00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:34.480
So obviously Hugh Grant plays that character so well and he's kind of awkward and but endearing, right?
00:08:34.559 --> 00:08:41.200
It's kind of like he's like you know, getting things wrong, stumbling on his words, but it's you know, you kind of you like him for it.
00:08:41.360 --> 00:08:49.120
Um he's charming, very charming, but also that the same actors start to appear in the films, right?
00:08:49.200 --> 00:08:50.799
And yeah, I guess that makes sense.
00:08:50.879 --> 00:08:58.399
I mean, if you're working with the same director, the same production company, they're gonna want the same actors to go through them, right?
00:08:58.639 --> 00:09:07.919
And the uh well, and the interestingly, um the American lead female, yes, yes, it's almost like that works the best.
00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:15.440
Because interestingly, in four weddings, I don't know how you watched it, but I actually wanted him to get together with his best friend, one of his best friends.
00:09:15.679 --> 00:09:33.600
Yeah, and it was a little bit heartbreaking that he didn't feel the same way about Fiona as she did about him, and that that scene where she says to him, you know, how she feels, and uh and he he's choosing Carrie, the American, who is a little bit um loose with his love, you know.
00:09:33.679 --> 00:09:38.960
She she sort of tried everybody else out before realizing he was the one.
00:09:39.279 --> 00:09:40.080
Yeah, definitely.
00:09:40.240 --> 00:09:45.759
Well, that friendship with uh I can't remember her name now, but that I mean it's just pure unrequited love, right?
00:09:45.840 --> 00:09:49.279
It's a kind of a classic tale of of one-way love.
00:09:49.519 --> 00:09:50.480
Yeah, it's really hard.
00:09:50.559 --> 00:09:54.480
But I like that they sort of captured uh all kinds of love in that.
00:09:54.799 --> 00:10:01.600
Um obviously there's same-sex love as well, which is I mean, for its time, but it was kind of unspoken um love, right?
00:10:01.759 --> 00:10:06.639
A gay love between I think the two of the two of the the the male friends in the friendship group.
00:10:06.799 --> 00:10:31.360
And I that probably was at a time when you know people didn't really it wasn't as sort of openly comfortable to talk about those things, yeah, but it was there, and I quite like that they had it in there because yeah, and it was real love, like you felt the love, because then obviously not to pop spoiler, but but but when when at the funeral when he's reading out the poem Stop the Clocks, you feel that love, you feel their connection, and it's very real.
00:10:31.440 --> 00:10:43.759
So they even though maybe it wasn't something seen on screen, it wasn't something that they um kind of glossed over too much, like it felt like a very real relationship, proper marriage, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:46.639
That stop the clocks speech was is amazing.
00:10:46.799 --> 00:10:49.519
That's yeah, one of the highlights, you know, the highlights of the film, I think.
00:10:49.679 --> 00:10:56.080
Yeah, um and I guess that's also the other thing, it's a romantic comedy, but it does have some darker moments in it, the funeral.
00:10:56.720 --> 00:11:01.600
Um and and again, it's just an opportunity to see the connection between all the characters.
00:11:01.679 --> 00:11:04.320
So I think it has it has such heart to it.
00:11:04.559 --> 00:11:04.879
Yeah.
00:11:05.039 --> 00:11:08.720
Um so they I think they got the balance really, really right.
00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:10.240
Agreed, agreed.
00:11:10.399 --> 00:11:24.080
And I think uh what you said there about the American protagonist, the the love interest of Annie McDowell, I think that's really I think they must have done that very deliberately because I think I mean they're smart guys, right?
00:11:24.159 --> 00:11:40.080
The the guys who who the at working title, and I think they are thinking about an international audience as much as a British audience, and they're thinking an American love interest just can builds that bridge between the two markets or audiences, maybe is a better way for saying it.
00:11:40.240 --> 00:11:44.399
And that theme uh extends to their next film, which was Notting Hill.
00:11:44.559 --> 00:11:57.759
So that comes a couple of years later, and we have Julia Roberts who plays this glamorous, gorgeous film star who comes to the UK or comes to London to promote her film, and she stumbles upon by accident.
00:11:57.840 --> 00:11:59.679
Um, you had a word for this.
00:11:59.759 --> 00:12:01.120
Uh um Meat Cute.
00:12:02.320 --> 00:12:02.960
Yeah.
00:12:03.200 --> 00:12:04.720
So it's what is a meat cute?
00:12:04.960 --> 00:12:05.440
Explain it to us.
00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:15.279
A meat cute is basically the the mechanism whereby a um two characters will find each other in a film.
00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:23.279
So like maybe one's ordered, they both order coffee, but they've got each other's coffee orders wrong, and so they have to swap and then it it causes a conversation.
00:12:23.600 --> 00:12:29.440
So um in this one, she ends up in his uh in Hugh Grant's bookshop in Notting Hill.
00:12:30.159 --> 00:12:37.840
It always makes me laugh because he's a failing bookshop owner who still gets to live in a beautiful house in Notting Hill.
00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:42.080
I mean, this is that's another theme that we're gonna come to is like how can they afford these things?
00:12:42.159 --> 00:12:42.960
But yeah, sorry.
00:12:43.200 --> 00:12:54.799
Yeah, so um, so that that's their kind of meat cue, but also he spills his orange juice on her, so she has to come and get herself cleaned up, and then they have a joke about that because it sounds wrong.
00:12:55.440 --> 00:12:56.799
They laugh about that.
00:12:57.039 --> 00:13:15.039
Um, so yes, and and the thing is at the time Julia Roberts really was one of the biggest female stars in the world, so it wasn't it it was very realistic that she would um you know you felt the kind of awe of like Hugh Grant meeting Julia Roberts um as as a viewer.
00:13:15.360 --> 00:13:16.639
It it worked really well.
00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:19.840
Definitely, definitely, yeah, exactly.
00:13:20.080 --> 00:13:28.879
So we have this glamorous American uh love interest, we have the ordinary in brackets kind of bumbling Englishman because again, he basically plays the same character, right?
00:13:28.960 --> 00:13:33.039
I would say like it's just a slightly older version um a few years later.
00:13:33.120 --> 00:13:36.480
It could be literally the same character, frankly, from four weddings and funeral to this.
00:13:36.799 --> 00:13:42.879
And he has and he has another group of eclectic, interesting friends, yeah.
00:13:43.039 --> 00:13:52.000
Um, including a hilarious Reese Iffans as his Welsh flatmate, who's just um he's so quirky.
00:13:52.320 --> 00:13:55.279
Um that's an iconic, an iconic role, I think.
00:13:55.360 --> 00:13:58.240
That one, um he does such a good job.
00:13:58.559 --> 00:14:14.000
There's a uh if I speaking of iconic scenes, there's the one where the paparazzi are outside Hugh Grant's character's door, which is a blue door, and uh Reese Iffens is like uh he goes out to pick up the mail or so, or answer the door, and he does this posing in his underwear.
00:14:14.080 --> 00:14:15.039
It's very iconic.
00:14:15.200 --> 00:14:20.559
I I found out that that blue door is was Richard Curtis, the screenplay writer.
00:14:20.639 --> 00:14:22.000
Well, I think he directed it actually.
00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:23.360
That's his actual door.
00:14:23.600 --> 00:14:32.000
So um when the uh the team were trying to find locations for the film, yeah, they took a photo of his blue door and they're like, Oh, this would be great.
00:14:32.080 --> 00:14:34.159
And he was like, hang on a second, that's my door.
00:14:34.399 --> 00:14:36.320
Um you can use it for free.
00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:43.279
Yeah, and it's become like a real um destination for film tourists who come into London who love the film and they go to that door.
00:14:43.360 --> 00:14:48.320
I don't think it's blue anymore, but um I think I have the address if you if you want to pop down to it.
00:14:48.559 --> 00:14:52.000
Um it is uh 280 Westbourne Park Road.
00:14:52.159 --> 00:14:52.799
So there you go.
00:14:53.120 --> 00:14:59.360
And I I felt very much with that film, it was a love letter to Nottinghill in many ways as an area.
00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:12.799
There's a really beautiful scene where you see Nottinghill through the seasons, it's it's to show the passing of time, but it's it's Hugh Grant walking through the market stalls, um, and the seasons are changing.
00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:19.759
And it's um, yeah, it it felt very much like this was it was written by someone who loved that area.
00:15:19.919 --> 00:15:23.120
Um, and it's a very uh romantic view of the area.
00:15:23.279 --> 00:15:35.679
Um, I mean, now we know that it's somewhere that's almost completely unaffordable, especially for someone who owns a bookshop, uh someone who seems to have a failed uh one of his friends got a failed restaurant, you know.
00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:43.120
Goodness knows what Reese Iffans does to uh, you know, he just seems to hang around the flat and eat dodgy food from the fridge.
00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:44.080
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:15:44.240 --> 00:15:45.440
No, I think you're absolutely right.
00:15:45.600 --> 00:15:53.200
And this goes to uh a point we were thinking about about London being a main character, right, in all these films or many of them.
00:15:53.360 --> 00:16:14.559
And I think Notting Hill is uh the main character in this film, and I think it's such an interesting area because at that time when they filmed it, I guess it was it was in its sort of gentrifying stage or phase rather, because previously it had been kind of where the Caribbean community has settled in London, and so that's why you have the Notting Hill Carnival, right?
00:16:14.720 --> 00:16:20.720
Every uh bank holiday in August, the Notting Hill Carnival sort of um takes over the the neighborhood.
00:16:20.799 --> 00:16:42.559
It's like you know, two million people, I think, go to it, and so you have that heritage there, and then it sort of gentrified in the late 80s, 90s, so you have a kind of character like Hugh Grant coming in, um, and then and as you say, this is a love letter to the to the area, and you've got Portobello Market, which is of course a huge tourist area, and you've got the shops, and it's just it's beautiful, right?
00:16:42.799 --> 00:16:50.000
And like the muse houses as well are just stunning, and then you go to now, as you say, like it's just off the chart.
00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:51.759
Who who can afford to live there?
00:16:51.840 --> 00:16:52.720
I have no idea.
00:16:52.879 --> 00:17:17.039
Um, unless unless you're earning a lot of money, but I suppose that's maybe something that we were saying goes through all the rom-coms, is that they are they show London and the UK beautifully, and even and this isn't a British rom-com, but the holiday is quite famous for its um depiction of um you know the countryside just outside, London, the cozy kind of cottage.
00:17:17.119 --> 00:17:33.519
And I suppose maybe it's it's a kind of a foreigner's idealised view of the UK, that that's part of the appeal of these films is that you're watching the characters, but you're also just watching the scenes, and then the thought that maybe one day you would go and try and find the front door in Notting Hill.
00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:52.400
Um, and and I guess also it helps with obviously these films were massive outside of the UK, and I think that that's I think sometimes we as Brits maybe struggle with the Hugh Grant personality and the the tropes of the different characters, you know, the quirky best friend or whatever.
00:17:52.480 --> 00:17:56.799
We might kind of cringe slightly at it because it's supposed to be a reflection of our society.
00:17:56.960 --> 00:18:11.599
Whereas I think you can um they were huge at elsewhere because you don't have that in a way that I could probably watch something like How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days and not cringe at Matthew McCogney and you know his sort of southern drawl, or you know, it just I love it.
00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:12.880
I just soak it all up.
00:18:12.960 --> 00:18:28.559
But um yeah, so obviously I think working title probably leaning into that, like you said, by having um Julia Roberts um play this main character and then moving on to something like Bridget Jones getting Rene Zellwigger to play, actually this time to play a Brit, which she did brilliantly.
00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:30.240
We have to her.
00:18:30.559 --> 00:18:31.359
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:32.960
I I think that's such a good point.
00:18:33.119 --> 00:18:35.599
When I look at these films, I sort of slightly cringe.
00:18:35.759 --> 00:18:39.440
When we get to love actually, I'll I'm gonna really you know go to town on that one.
00:18:39.759 --> 00:18:45.839
But that yeah, as Brits, we look at it, we're just like, oh god, like I think a lot of people are just like, oh, he's a bit of a posh twat, you know.
00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:48.480
Like I think that's how they would perceive him.
00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:55.599
Um that that sort of bumbling Brit is actually just like really cliche and not realistic.
00:18:55.759 --> 00:19:01.839
And uh their version I always find it with uh American films, there are two versions of of an English person.
00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:08.559
It's either you're a Hugh Grant character or you're like a sort of Jason Statham, like Cockney, you know, hard man.
00:19:08.640 --> 00:19:13.119
It's like those are the only two versions of English people that that they they have.
00:19:13.279 --> 00:19:15.519
So there's not a lot of nuance there, I guess.
00:19:15.839 --> 00:19:18.799
Interestingly though, I do think we also play quite a good villain.
00:19:19.119 --> 00:19:27.680
Because I think sometimes, I think sometimes they see the British accent and they think, you know, you must be really intelligent and therefore quite scheming and yeah.
00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:38.880
No, there's I I read an article about this, there's a whole thing about why, yeah, received pronunciation has historically been the accent of the baddie or the the the the evil genius in American films.
00:19:39.039 --> 00:19:44.640
When films were starting to be made, there was difficult relations between Britain and America in that sense.
00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:46.319
So yeah, I'll do a whole video on that.
00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:47.039
It's really fascinating.
00:19:47.200 --> 00:19:49.839
And so what they made us the enemy, so they made us the enemy.
00:19:50.160 --> 00:19:51.039
So interesting then.
00:19:51.119 --> 00:19:53.680
So really this is a this is a new creation then.
00:19:53.759 --> 00:20:06.559
The working title really did come up with a new type of Englishman, which is the um the bumbling, charming, wealthy, um yeah, yeah, definitely look at a very particular kind of world.
00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:14.400
Um they always live in beautiful properties and just locations.
00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:20.000
Yeah, so that links really nicely to our next film, which is Bridget Jones, and it's one of my favourites personally.
00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:23.519
I think it's the original is just a magnificent film.
00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:27.200
And Bridget Jones lives in in her own flat.
00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:30.319
Uh the location is literally in Borough Market.
00:20:30.400 --> 00:20:36.319
If you've been to London, you'll know that Borough Market is probably the most the best location for for food tourism, at least.
00:20:36.480 --> 00:20:40.720
Um, it's yeah, there's a food market there, it's so central.
00:20:40.960 --> 00:20:44.079
Um, and again, you're like, she's a she's a she works in TV.
00:20:44.240 --> 00:20:46.480
How is is one affording this flat?
00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:48.000
You have to suspend disbelief.
00:20:48.079 --> 00:20:54.160
It's the same with Kate Winslet in um she works, she does the wedding column in the holiday, and she has that beautiful cottage.
00:20:54.400 --> 00:20:56.400
Yeah, like it just doesn't add up.
00:20:56.559 --> 00:21:00.160
But let's go with it because none of us really want to see the reality, right?
00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:04.400
Which is the kind of slightly pokey accommodation.
00:21:04.640 --> 00:21:05.039
Exactly.
00:21:05.200 --> 00:21:22.319
Um, what you were saying there was that for uh Bridget Jones, they found an American actress in in uh Rennie Zellweger, uh Renee, Renee Zellweger, that's how I think her name is, and but she puts on what I think is one of the best English accents I've heard from an American actor.
00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:24.079
Yeah, you have to hand it to her.
00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:35.039
I I was a little bit upset when I first heard about the casting, only because Bridget Jones, especially at that time, was just the kind of every girl of Britain.
00:21:35.200 --> 00:21:41.680
It was the, you know, she was thought she was overweight, but she really wasn't, was quite down on herself, but was actually completely lovable.
00:21:41.759 --> 00:21:49.680
And I thought it's a shame, I felt at the time it was a shame they couldn't have cast her from the hundreds of amazing British actresses that we had.
00:21:50.319 --> 00:21:59.759
But obviously they did it for Global Appeal, and I do think that Rene Zelbiger carried it off really well, and um, and they cast the other two roles so perfectly with Colin.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:01.599
Firth um as Mr.
00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:04.880
Darcy, and that's obviously a nod to the fact that he had actually been Mr.
00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:11.759
Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, which is a very famous TV show, which had been on screen a few years before in the UK.
00:22:12.480 --> 00:22:14.400
And then to actually cast him as Mr.
00:22:14.559 --> 00:22:18.319
Darcy in Bridget was just a clever little uh aside, really.
00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:30.480
Well, then Hugh Grant just absolutely brilliant because he suddenly was a completely different version of the male lead that he'd been before.
00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:44.000
There was no bumbling, he was, I mean, terrible, awful person, but funny, so funny, and sort of unleashed from that um foppish role that he'd been put in for so many years.
00:22:44.240 --> 00:23:02.240
And you just kind of got the feeling that it was maybe closer to his personality because he's gone on to play villains, Paddington, and and and um I I think potentially the the original characters weren't so closely aligned to his personality, right?
00:23:02.319 --> 00:23:02.720
Right, right.
00:23:02.799 --> 00:23:06.559
Yeah, he's kind of like a bit of a rogue, a bit of a cad, very charming.
00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:08.880
She's got a real soft spot for him, hasn't she?
00:23:09.119 --> 00:23:15.920
Um Firth plays it so straight, he's just the perfect kind of counter to that.
00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:22.720
Well, he's the sort of like stiff upper lip traditional image of a of an English gentleman, you know?
00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:29.279
Kind of like can't express his feelings, um, is kind of emotionless, but like represses it all.
00:23:29.359 --> 00:23:34.720
But he you know, he he loves her, but he he can't tell her, and it's so frustrating to watch.
00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:36.640
Yeah, so frustrating.
00:23:38.160 --> 00:23:52.880
Um there's one thing that maybe, and we'll come to later on is kind of like looking back at these films and with with new eyes, you know, speaking in 2026 as we are, how do these would these films get made now?
00:23:53.039 --> 00:24:13.119
And one element of maybe the more uncomfortable side of Bridget Jones is the um the sort of I guess fat shaming or talking about weight so much, that's a real part of this film about you know um the comments that she gets, the the sexual harassment essentially in in some of the in some of the workplace situations.
00:24:13.519 --> 00:24:19.279
I guess that just I don't know, I I guess it it reflects badly on that period of time, maybe.
00:24:19.519 --> 00:24:22.160
Yeah, it is almost unwatchable at points.
00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:28.640
Um, and I think like I it's funny, I've I've watched all the other ones with my daughter, but this one I've kind of held back on.
00:24:28.720 --> 00:24:36.000
But then at the same time, maybe it would be useful to show her in the sense that look how things have come on and look at the progress we've made.
00:24:36.160 --> 00:24:46.079
Because I mean, I remember watching it when it first came out, and I wasn't struck by any of that, which kind of shocks me now because I do see it so clearly.
00:24:46.559 --> 00:25:06.000
Um but it was definitely you know, the the it came from a book, Bridget Jones came from columns that were written and needed so that then became a book, and at that time it was the 90s, and people were obsessed with weight, and it was like thin is beautiful, and um, and so people did count calories and um constantly weigh themselves.
00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:12.400
So it was it was reflective of a time, and I suppose we just have to be grateful that that isn't how we see things now.
00:25:12.559 --> 00:25:18.480
And I suppose what's lovely is they have gone on to do other films um and obviously moved away from that.
00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:30.079
Um, and she's just kept the kind of ditzyness, which is something that people have always loved as the Bridget Jones character, but um has lost the kind of self-hatred, maybe.
00:25:30.319 --> 00:25:30.880
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:34.160
Yeah, I think there are there are four films now, right?
00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:42.079
Like the there was one quite recently where she uh she has a little fling with a younger man who's played by Leo Woodall, who's a fantastic actor.
00:25:42.240 --> 00:25:49.279
He stars in One Day, which is uh the Netflix uh version of the book, um, and it's superb in that.
00:25:49.680 --> 00:26:02.960
I don't know if that's a rom com as such, but it's you know it's a drama and beautiful when they kind of maybe he's an heir to Hugh Grant's throne as kind of the lead in these kinds of rom coms.
00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:11.359
Yeah, because we've had it's just been a vast wasteland since uh love actually uh you know, did that kind of cap it off?
00:26:11.440 --> 00:26:22.079
I felt like it felt like they were on a roll, and then for some reason, and whether it's just that Hugh Grant didn't want to play those characters anymore and no one was able to kind of step up and take the place.
00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:27.680
I think actually, although he makes it look really easy, I think it's actually a really difficult role to play.
00:26:28.000 --> 00:27:01.440
Um, so I I don't know, like you said, it's very uh who who has come up to take his place, so continue, or maybe they're just a reflection of a time that was very optimistic and um you know it's sort of new labour came in, and I think there was a real pride in Britain and you know, like like I said, a wave of optimism, and they were made against the backdrop of that, and then we had some really sort of tricky times as a country that maybe we're still working through, and and maybe there hasn't been the confidence to make something like that again.
00:27:02.240 --> 00:27:03.359
That is a really good point, yeah.
00:27:03.519 --> 00:27:06.480
Not the confidence, and then maybe there's just not the appetite for that kind of a film.
00:27:06.640 --> 00:27:08.559
Yeah people but maybe they will be now.
00:27:08.640 --> 00:27:19.359
Maybe it's you know what you kind of uh you try to escape reality with with film and music that maybe times are as they are quite difficult, and maybe it's sort of an escapism.
00:27:19.519 --> 00:27:22.240
Um you know, a soppy love story uh might be what we want.
00:27:22.480 --> 00:27:28.400
One last thing about uh British Jones is it I think it delivers one of the greatest fight scenes of all time.
00:27:29.200 --> 00:27:41.359
And there's uh so it's it's between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, and they're in a Greek restaurant, and it's just two English gentlemen who have no ability of fighting, they have no idea what they're doing.
00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:45.279
So it's really just it's just so pathetic, but hilarious.
00:27:45.519 --> 00:27:56.880
And um, I was introduced to a new uh term, which is a needle drop, which is kind of like when uh a song comes on that suddenly changes the atmosphere of a scene in a film.
00:27:57.039 --> 00:28:14.480
And I think this is a great example of I think they they go through the window of the Greek restaurant and suddenly Gloria Gaynor's It's Raining Men hits, and they're trying to fight in the street, and it's just there's like suddenly that song takes that scene to another level, it just elevates it completely.
00:28:14.640 --> 00:28:20.720
Um, I think it's fantastic, and they're I love the way they're as they're fighting through the restaurant, they're sort of apologizing to the diners.
00:28:20.960 --> 00:28:22.160
I'm so sorry, so sorry.
00:28:23.039 --> 00:28:32.720
Um genius, and like I think uh they start singing happy birthday to uh one of the people in the restaurant, and so they stop and they're singing happy birthday, what's his name?
00:28:33.200 --> 00:28:35.200
Because they don't know who who they're talking to.
00:28:35.519 --> 00:28:40.079
Ready to start up again, and I think the actors themselves took control of that.
00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:50.079
I think they said, Don't try and choreograph us, you know, we're too middle class English gents, we wouldn't have ever thrown a punch before.
00:28:50.400 --> 00:29:18.160
So don't make us look too slick, and they kind of rift, and actually, it's yeah, that's it's genius, and you're right, it's a real and in fact, music is quite big in Bridget Jones because then there's the other great scene where um she sings all by myself, yeah, um, and she's alone in her apartment, and and that that again such a pivotal moment because you just really feel her pain of just being on her own again and it all going wrong for her.
00:29:18.240 --> 00:29:19.359
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:29:19.839 --> 00:29:24.400
It makes you love her so much, it's such a brilliant um yeah, start to the film.
00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:25.279
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:29:33.039 --> 00:29:40.079
Okay, so we're gonna now move on to probably the most famous British rom-com, Love Actually.
00:29:40.319 --> 00:29:43.119
It's also, I would say, the most divisive.
00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:44.480
Is that fair to say?
00:29:44.880 --> 00:29:50.160
Well, didn't you send me something that said that it was the most popular rom-com, which I was surprised at?
00:29:50.559 --> 00:30:00.160
Yeah, I think there is a tradition in the US of watching it uh over Christmas, because it is a Christmas film, so it has that seasonality.
00:30:00.559 --> 00:30:02.079
We always watch the holiday.
00:30:02.319 --> 00:30:05.039
Um that's the third time you've mentioned the holiday, by the way.
00:30:05.119 --> 00:30:06.079
Do you want to talk about the holiday?
00:30:06.160 --> 00:30:10.880
Do you want to I know it's not a British rom-com, but it is set in Britain for some of it.
00:30:11.119 --> 00:30:13.279
And uh and it's just I just love it.
00:30:13.519 --> 00:30:26.079
But um, but no, so maybe it's that thing of like it's just a tradition rather than and and maybe like you were saying, like about being able to suspend the disbelief a bit more.
00:30:26.240 --> 00:30:34.000
Because I think this is one where I don't cringe so much during Ossi Hill in Four Weddings, but I do really cringe at love actually.
00:30:34.319 --> 00:30:35.519
Yeah, me too.
00:30:36.240 --> 00:30:40.960
So if you haven't watched it, it's um I guess there are there are many love stories.
00:30:41.119 --> 00:30:43.519
I don't know how many there are, maybe ten, I can't remember.
00:30:43.680 --> 00:30:47.599
And they kind of they evolve as the film goes on in a different direction.
00:30:47.839 --> 00:30:52.160
Some of them interweave, crossover, some of them are just completely separate.
00:30:52.319 --> 00:30:56.319
Um, some of them are sweet, some of them are cringe, some of them are problematic.
00:30:56.559 --> 00:30:59.279
Um most of them are problematic, in my opinion.
00:30:59.599 --> 00:31:09.519
Um and it basically has an ensemble cast of British actors, British and Irish actors, because you've got um Liam Neeson as well.
00:31:09.759 --> 00:31:12.160
So you've got Hugh Grant, there he is again.
00:31:12.319 --> 00:31:14.319
Uh playing the Prime Minister.
00:31:14.640 --> 00:31:16.640
Playing the Prime Minister, yeah.
00:31:16.960 --> 00:31:19.279
You've got um, who else you got?
00:31:19.519 --> 00:31:24.799
Emma um Emma Thompson who's married to Alan Rickman, um Alan Rickman.
00:31:25.119 --> 00:31:26.000
And their storyline.
00:31:26.079 --> 00:31:32.559
I think that one maybe is um has one of the more poignant moments of the film I can kind of I feel like I can relate to.
00:31:32.640 --> 00:31:47.200
She finds out he's having an affair, and she finds out really sadly on Christmas Day, because she's expected to get one present, which she's seen that he's bought, and she gets a Joni Mitchell CD, and she goes off and has a moment by herself, and it is literal heartbreak to watch really difficult.
00:31:47.920 --> 00:31:54.880
That's really hard, especially because Emma Emma uh Thompson comes across in life as such a lovely person in the film as such a lovely person.
00:31:54.960 --> 00:31:56.319
It's kind of yeah, somewhat hard.
00:31:56.880 --> 00:32:00.079
It's just because her husband's fallen for like the young hot thing at work.
00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:01.359
I mean, it's just cringe.
00:32:01.599 --> 00:32:02.880
It's and it's cliched, right?
00:32:02.960 --> 00:32:09.680
It's the most cliche, and I suppose that's quite clever putting such a I hate to say it, but like a relatable storyline uh into it.
00:32:10.079 --> 00:32:10.240
Yeah.
00:32:10.480 --> 00:32:20.480
Um the one that I I dislike the most is the Kira Knightley Andrew Lincoln story, where Kira Knightley um marries her partner.
00:32:21.200 --> 00:32:48.559
And yeah, and Andrew Lincoln's is his best friend, and he he he has this like unrequited love for her, and he confesses it with the scene where he it stands outside her door and has cards um you know saying his feelings, yeah, and he he sort of takes you know the cards away and and tells her the message, and it's like even though his best friend, who's just married this woman, is in in the back, you can hear him.
00:32:48.720 --> 00:32:51.599
Yeah, a terrible betrayal, in my opinion.
00:32:51.839 --> 00:32:58.960
Yeah, and it's when he you realize like on their wedding day he was in charge of filming and he just films her in close-up the whole time.
00:32:59.279 --> 00:33:02.799
Very creepy, yeah, very creepy, yeah.
00:33:03.039 --> 00:33:06.799
I mean, I do wonder whether there's any actor that could have made it non-cree.
00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:08.000
I I don't know.
00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:12.880
I think it and and it makes you sort of reflect back on the other films and think, were there creepy elements there?
00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:14.480
But I no, I don't I don't think so.
00:33:14.559 --> 00:33:16.559
I think they they got away with it.
00:33:16.640 --> 00:33:19.839
It just um this one just slightly lost their way.
00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:27.039
I mean, the only re really re redeeming part of this film is the um arrivals uh footage.
00:33:27.519 --> 00:33:30.240
That is just pure joy and love.
00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:31.599
Yeah, yeah.
00:33:31.839 --> 00:33:35.839
So that comes from Richard Curtis, who I think directed it.
00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:38.720
He was stuck at LA Airport and he observed it.
00:33:39.039 --> 00:33:45.759
I think he was waiting for like a package or something, and he observed it in LA Airport, and he thought, Oh you know, isn't it amazing all these like stories in one place?
00:33:46.079 --> 00:33:53.680
And he saw like the love and um the the the happiness of it all, and he so that's when he was like, Oh, that would be a great opening for a film.
00:33:54.000 --> 00:34:09.119
And it is, it's genuinely a brilliant opening to a film, and and I think the the concept in itself, having a kind of Christmas-based film with lots of interweaving love stories is absolutely brilliant, but for some reason they just haven't stood the test of time.
00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:13.760
Um, so uh yeah, I I struggle to watch it now.
00:34:14.079 --> 00:34:15.599
Yeah, definitely.
00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:28.320
Uh, there is one other quite good scene, it's a needle drop, uh, as we were talking about earlier, is when um Hugh Grant playing the the Prime Minister, he sort of tells the American president where to go.
00:34:28.400 --> 00:34:38.960
Uh this real defiant moment, and then um he starts dancing to uh the Pointer Sisters Jump for My Love, and he does this like dance through um Downing Street, yeah.
00:34:39.119 --> 00:34:46.480
And allegedly, like when he saw it in the script, Hugh Grant, he was like, Oh god, oh god, I hate doing that.
00:34:46.639 --> 00:34:51.039
And so he did it under duress somewhat, but I think it came out really well.
00:34:51.119 --> 00:35:00.320
Um it's a really famous scene, and it's funny because the not the dancing, but the standing up to the US president is used all the time if you listen to political podcasts.
00:35:00.400 --> 00:35:04.320
They're like, why can't he have a Hugh Grant moment and just stand up to Trump?
00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:16.960
You know, they people use it a lot, so it's yeah, I think a lot of these films have got cultural references in them, um, moments like that that are then used and talked about in wider conversations.
00:35:17.119 --> 00:35:25.440
So there is a kind of if you haven't seen the film these films, um, you do kind of you don't necessarily understand, you didn't get the references, do you?
00:35:25.519 --> 00:35:26.800
So yeah, definitely.
00:35:27.119 --> 00:35:29.440
I think there's so much we could say about love action.
00:35:29.599 --> 00:35:38.400
I think we should do start doing like just one long episode about about films or or you know certain TV shows and just really do a deep dive into them.
00:35:38.800 --> 00:35:50.239
What you were saying there about the cultural reference thing, which I think is why you know, if you're listening and you haven't watched any of these films, it's worth watching just to kind of get the cultural references, if you're especially if you're living in the UK.
00:35:50.480 --> 00:35:58.320
A film that is sort of underrated on that level is Sliding Doors, which I think we can consider to be a rom-com of sorts.
00:35:58.800 --> 00:36:05.199
Um and the concept is that uh the main character, I've forgotten who it is, um Gwyneth Powshow.
00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:06.719
Gwynneth Power, thank you.
00:36:06.800 --> 00:36:24.320
Uh, formerly married to Chris Martin of Coplay, she runs down to the tube and the doors are closing, and then in one version she gets on the tube, and in the other version she doesn't make it on the tube, and then the story splits into two, and we see like what would have happened in both ones.
00:36:24.639 --> 00:36:30.000
And we use that phrase it's a sliding doors moment in in everyday conversation, right?
00:36:30.079 --> 00:36:34.159
To talk about oh, like how your path could have gone in in different directions.
00:36:34.320 --> 00:36:34.719
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:34.880 --> 00:36:39.599
Um, and it's really it's quite quite a cool concept, I think, and makes her a really good film.
00:36:40.079 --> 00:36:43.519
Yeah, and the uh the leading man in that was also in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:49.679
So it's what again, what you're saying about the characters appearing or the actors appearing throughout.
00:36:50.239 --> 00:36:50.480
Yeah.
00:36:50.719 --> 00:37:01.360
I think looking back at some of these films now, I do wonder if the fact that we now have technology, the technology that we have now, makes them impossible to have been made.
00:37:01.440 --> 00:37:07.679
I mean, Four Weddings and a Funeral, he he basically only meets up with the Andy McDowell character at weddings.
00:37:07.760 --> 00:37:25.920
They have no contact outside of it, other than one time that he's shopping to buy her a wedding present and she happens to be in the shop with so it's all coincidences, which kind of draws out the love story in a way that maybe you would have, if you know, if you'd sought numbers, you would have wrapped it up much quicker.
00:37:26.400 --> 00:37:26.800
Definitely.
00:37:27.280 --> 00:37:33.360
And and I think because that's I mean, there's a lot of miscommunication which which helps in love stories, doesn't it?
00:37:33.440 --> 00:37:43.280
They're kind of you know, they have to kind of have this connection, the meet cute moment, and then they have to have some kind of miscommunication that means that they have these sort of lonely moments.
00:37:43.679 --> 00:37:49.920
The Notting Hill walking through the the uh the market looking really upset, and then they come back together again.
00:37:50.079 --> 00:37:58.320
And I guess if you have a mobile and you can just exchange a contact number, then you don't have as much of that um jeopardy.
00:37:58.960 --> 00:38:06.079
So I wonder whether that has played a part that since having this new technology, we just don't have these these kind of films anymore.
00:38:06.159 --> 00:38:10.719
There's an innocence about them, and therefore that also plays into why there's such nostalgia.
00:38:11.039 --> 00:38:11.440
Yeah.
00:38:11.679 --> 00:38:13.039
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
00:38:13.360 --> 00:38:19.039
We sort of referenced the nostalgia earlier with four weddings, seeing the old cars, the old roads, how things used to be.
00:38:19.280 --> 00:38:22.159
And I think we we do lean towards that, don't we?
00:38:22.480 --> 00:38:30.239
Particularly you know, as times are a little bit strange now, looking back at those times without AI, without mobile technology, like, oh, look at the simplicity of it all.
00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:35.519
But like you said, like the complication of like, you know, you have to have these coincidental meetings.
00:38:35.599 --> 00:38:38.159
Um I don't know, there was something about that.
00:38:38.239 --> 00:38:38.639
I don't know.
00:38:38.719 --> 00:38:43.519
I think it's because that's the era that we grew up in, so that's why we are drawn to it so much.
00:38:43.760 --> 00:38:48.800
Yeah, there's one modern version, uh, modern version of a rom com that I really love, which is Ryah Lane.
00:38:49.039 --> 00:38:53.119
Um, it came out a couple of years ago, and it's uh based in Peckham.
00:38:53.679 --> 00:39:00.159
And um the the character, it's it's it's more kind of it's yeah, a bit more sort of contemporary London.
00:39:00.320 --> 00:39:08.239
Um, the actors are are black, and that's you know the level of diversity that none of the other uh films achieved.
00:39:08.320 --> 00:39:10.559
I mean, they're very mono-cultural, right?
00:39:10.639 --> 00:39:15.519
They're very white middle class experiences, whereas this is a you know more diverse.
00:39:15.679 --> 00:39:24.639
Um, so I think but it's it's also really beautifully written and it's charming and witty, and uh yeah, definitely one to check out if if people haven't seen that one.
00:39:24.800 --> 00:39:27.760
Um I'm trying to think of there any other kind of romance.
00:39:27.920 --> 00:39:32.159
We talked about One Day, which is a really lovely Netflix TV show.
00:39:32.480 --> 00:39:33.119
That is lovely.
00:39:33.199 --> 00:39:35.440
I wonder if it has as much of the comedy in it.
00:39:35.679 --> 00:39:40.880
Um I think like those original ones that you were talking about, there there is a line of comedy that runs through.
00:39:41.119 --> 00:39:45.840
Whereas I feel like that maybe leans more into sort of the romance drama.
00:39:46.239 --> 00:39:57.760
Um I guess that's also interesting that a lot of a lot of money has now gone into TV shows that are sort of um, you know, eight episodes long rather than trying to tie something up in an hour and a half, two hours.
00:39:58.000 --> 00:39:58.320
Yeah.
00:39:58.639 --> 00:40:02.400
Um, do you have a personal favourite of the ones that we've discussed?
00:40:02.800 --> 00:40:03.360
Wow.
00:40:03.599 --> 00:40:05.199
Uh huge question.
00:40:05.360 --> 00:40:06.239
Um, do you know what?
00:40:06.320 --> 00:40:09.199
I'm gonna I'm gonna hold my uh vote just for a second.
00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:15.920
I want to share just a some statistics with you before we get to it because it it's not just us that that like rom coms.
00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:23.519
Um there was a you gov poll in 2026, so earlier this year, it said that 43% of Brits either like or love rom coms.
00:40:23.679 --> 00:40:24.960
That's almost half.
00:40:25.119 --> 00:40:26.400
So that's huge, I think.
00:40:26.960 --> 00:40:30.239
Um it skews mostly female, obviously.
00:40:30.400 --> 00:40:34.079
Uh well not obviously, but I could have predicted that.
00:40:34.239 --> 00:40:37.840
56% of women are positive about rom-coms compared to 29% of men.
00:40:37.920 --> 00:40:45.679
Um, whether those men are being honest or not, because I think it's one of those things where like, you know, the the macho guy is just like, you know, I'm not into rom-coms, I'm into action films.
00:40:45.760 --> 00:40:47.679
It's like, well, is that true?
00:40:47.760 --> 00:40:50.159
Uh or are you uh just not telling us?
00:40:50.320 --> 00:40:54.719
And also interesting, like older Brits are less into rom-coms than younger uh generations.
00:40:54.800 --> 00:41:03.199
So 30% of over 65s like rom coms, whereas 44% of 19 to 24 year olds, or 18 to 24 year olds, like them.
00:41:03.440 --> 00:41:05.599
So I think it's interesting.
00:41:05.840 --> 00:41:09.519
Yeah, the younger generation are a bit older and a bit more cynical.
00:41:10.559 --> 00:41:11.440
Yeah, maybe.
00:41:11.519 --> 00:41:12.480
Yeah, maybe.
00:41:12.719 --> 00:41:14.800
Um, do you want to know the top three?
00:41:14.960 --> 00:41:18.239
Uh uh sort of Britain's favourite rom-coms.
00:41:18.639 --> 00:41:20.880
So this is this is this is Britain.
00:41:21.440 --> 00:41:24.320
Well, no, it's British people's favourite rom coms.
00:41:24.480 --> 00:41:26.320
Okay, so it could be an American rom com.
00:41:26.559 --> 00:41:29.119
We might have mentioned all three of these today.
00:41:29.440 --> 00:41:32.239
Um number three, Bridget Jones.
00:41:32.800 --> 00:41:39.920
Okay, number two, the holiday, and number one with with 20% love actually.
00:41:40.559 --> 00:41:42.079
Oh, there we are.
00:41:42.480 --> 00:41:45.760
Because I think you'd sent me that, and I was I was a bit surprised by that.
00:41:45.840 --> 00:41:51.519
So obviously, other people you know can see past all the things that annoy us.
00:41:51.840 --> 00:41:52.719
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:41:52.880 --> 00:41:55.920
Okay, so what is your personal favourite film?
00:41:56.559 --> 00:42:01.920
Um, I think as much as I do love the holiday, I think it will always be for weddings.
00:42:02.159 --> 00:42:09.039
Um, I think it's just a genuinely beautiful film for all the friendships and the highs and the lows.
00:42:09.199 --> 00:42:17.280
And yeah, if I if I could choose to make a cup of tea and go and watch one now, that would be that would be the one that I would be sitting on the sofa with this afternoon.
00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:18.559
Fair enough.
00:42:18.639 --> 00:42:19.920
Yeah, it's yeah, brilliant.
00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:21.039
It really does stand up.
00:42:21.199 --> 00:42:23.199
Um, I'm gonna go with Bridget Jones.
00:42:23.360 --> 00:42:28.559
I think the original Bridget Jones is iconic, uh, it's funny, there's some brilliant scenes.
00:42:28.639 --> 00:42:30.400
I think she's such a likable character.
00:42:30.559 --> 00:42:36.000
Uh, Hugh Grant, I think, yeah, like as the slightly more roguish character, I loved.
00:42:36.400 --> 00:42:41.039
Um, and yeah, just it's in it, it's got a great depiction of London as well.
00:42:41.119 --> 00:42:42.960
I yeah, I'm a big fan of that one.
00:42:43.119 --> 00:42:46.320
Less so the sequels, but the first one really stands up for me.
00:42:46.480 --> 00:42:47.280
Yes, 100%.
00:42:47.840 --> 00:42:48.639
Good choices.
00:42:48.960 --> 00:42:54.000
Annie, I think that sort of wraps up our conversation about rom coms for today, but I think there's so much more we could talk about.
00:42:54.239 --> 00:43:02.239
So if you guys, well, I think the main question is to ask uh our audience what is their favourite rom com, British rom com, let us know.
00:43:02.400 --> 00:43:04.800
Put it in the comments uh of this podcast.
00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:06.719
Um, we would love to know.
00:43:06.880 --> 00:43:14.239
Um, also, if you are enjoying this podcast, we have a little request, which is for you to rate it on the platform that you're listening.
00:43:14.320 --> 00:43:26.000
So if it's Spotify, Apple Music, uh, YouTube, wherever you're listening, we would really, really um appreciate uh a rating and review because it helps us to find our community, our audience.
00:43:26.159 --> 00:43:31.360
Um and yeah, we're still just a little podcast at the moment, but hopefully we'd love to grow uh with your help.
00:43:31.519 --> 00:43:33.519
So thank you so much uh in advance.
00:43:33.599 --> 00:43:36.480
Um any little comments you have as well, uh we would appreciate.
00:43:36.639 --> 00:43:39.039
Um but Annie, I think that's it for this week.
00:43:39.199 --> 00:43:40.400
Um how's it been?
00:43:40.800 --> 00:43:43.840
We're we're sort of apart, we're we're not together today.
00:43:44.079 --> 00:43:44.800
How's it been?
00:43:45.679 --> 00:43:48.639
Uh uh well, I miss us going and having lunch now.
00:43:49.119 --> 00:43:50.480
Yeah, I miss my free lunch.
00:43:50.639 --> 00:43:52.400
Yeah, my delicious, healthy free lunch.
00:43:52.639 --> 00:43:55.760
So uh we'll try and get together again, maybe not next week, but the week after.
00:43:55.920 --> 00:43:59.280
We have a special interview coming next week, our first guest.
00:43:59.519 --> 00:44:02.880
So um I will tease no more, but uh yeah, looking forward to that.
00:44:03.199 --> 00:44:03.679
Exciting.
00:44:03.920 --> 00:44:04.320
Brilliant.
00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:05.920
Thank you so much for listening, guys.
00:44:06.159 --> 00:44:07.599
Take care, thanks for watching.
