The Song of Lunch

He's a London book editor in middle age, a failed poet who spends his days fixing other people's prose. She left him fifteen years ago, married a successful novelist and moved to Paris. Today they're meeting for lunch at Zanzotti's, the Soho Italian where they used to go when they were together.

Things don't start well. The restaurant has had a makeover he hates, she seems happier than he'd like, and the Chianti is going down far too quickly. Between memories, digs and an old literary wound, the lunch isn't going to go the way he'd planned.

Running under an hour, 'The Song of Lunch' stays very close to Christopher Reid's 2009 narrative poem. Most of what you hear is the verse itself, spoken as his inner monologue, while the camera shows what the lines describe. Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson, husband and wife in 'Love Actually', play the two leads, who are never named: the credits just call them He and She.

Niall MacCormick directed it for the BBC, which made it together with PBS's 'Masterpiece'. Greg Wise, Thompson's husband, was one of the executive producers. BBC Two showed it on 8 October 2010 to mark National Poetry Day, and PBS aired it in the US on 13 November 2011. Thompson was nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie, and the average across the 8 outlets collected on Movienco is 7 out of 10.

• Drama
• Romance