The Girl In the Cafe

I have just been watching 'The Girl In The Cafe' on BBC 1 this evening, and in consequence missed 'Murder in Suburbia' !
But it was absolutely worth it. I have to admit that when I first heard about this one off drama, as a piece written by Richard Curtis of Blackadder, Four Weddings, and Love Actually fame I groaned inwardly. First of all the words 'One-off drama' were not mentioned, but what was mentioned were the plot, a girl in a cafe (Kelly MacDonald) falling in love of a senior civil servant (Bill Nighy) under the backdrop of the G8 summit. I felt this was a comedy too far..
But no, Richard Curtis has put his writing skills to very good use (as always) and the humour never appears, except in one or two dry asides which work well.
There are improbabilities. He takes her to the summit in Reykjavik, Iceland (The actual G8 summit will take place in Edinburgh) and proceeds to embarras senior politicans and diplomats at just about every social event he takes her to by pointing out where they are failing to commit themselves to Global poverty and where they allow themselves to compromise.
But whilst this may not happen in real life (and I loved the bit where the Chancellor berates the civil servant afterwards: 'We have security cordons to keep those nutters out!'), the message of the story is the important thing. Next week will see the G8 summit and important discussions on world poverty will be on the agenda and the american government are dragging their heels on this issue.
Lets help make this the No 1 important global issue, even if it mean embarrasing ourselves.