I am watching a horrible TV movie on CBC right now, mostly because PBS, my usual Sunday night date, has let me down by showing some shitty self-help seminar rather than Masterpiece Theatre. "Abroad" is about a plucky Toronto girl-journalist who gets a job working for a Daily Mail-esque tabloid in London. It's so full of ridiculous English stereotypes and has so romanticized life in London I want to vomit, but it's also showing great shots of all of my favorite places in London, and I can't stop watching.
I have no idea what the protagonist's name is, but of course, she's living in Notting Hill. And she has two actually-English roommates (myth #1), a gay posh fashion designer who says minx alot (stereotype alert #1) and a blonde slutty girl with a heart of gold named Poppy (stereotype alert #2). She has a horrible prim English rose of a boss named Jemima Whitfield Pennington-Greene (stereotype alert #3). On her first day at work she butts heads with the Northern lad business reporter with a chip on his shoulder (stereotype alert #4) who you know she is going to end up with (myth #2). On her first night, she gets taken out on a date by a man named Edward (stereotype alert #5) who has a large house in the country, wears a signet ring, and drives her around the most important parts of London (Piccadilly Circus - myth #3) in his convertible Aston Martin.
Poor Dear just got her heart broken when she and Edward went "to the polo" (I am slightly mollified that she is wearing the ugliest yellow imitation Philip Treacy hat I have ever seen), and she catches him having sex with the blonde and lovely lady Victoria Barnes in the stables. Oh my. What WILL she do?
In order to make "Abroad" more authentic, I'm going to write to the producers and suggest the following additions be made to the plot of the sequel (snort):
1) roof of Poor Dear's bedroom falls in due to rot;
2) realistic scenes of Poor Dear's 40 minute commute on the packed Central Line to work every day;
3) have all action take place in the rain;
4) have Poor Dear move in with a Polish student and a Norwegian investment banker;
5) have Poor Dear get mistaken for American in every other scene;
6) show scenes of Poor Dear picking up a ready meal at Tesco Metro at 11:30 p.m. when she's finished work and fall asleep on the couch in front of Panorama before she finishes.
I think I might really be on to something here. Instead of her finally getting the big story and being offered a promotion and a permanent contract and the brusque-but-loveable Northern lad on a silver platter, we'll show her having a real "good-London-day:" a seat on the Tube on the way to AND from work, a bonus 15,000 Advantage points at Boots, and she gets out of work before 7 p.m.
I should really get to work on the screenplay now.
