Have I seen you before?

Episode One

I Love to Love (But My Baby Loves to Dance)

Phone box. Clapham. Night. A dishevelled Jack Davenport and unbuttoned Amanda Holden are providing 'the early sex scene'. He is clutching a KFC takeaway box in one hand.

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Amanda: We haven't done it in a phone box since we first met.

Jack: I know.

Amanda: Stop, I think someone's coming.

Jack: Yeah. Me.

They laugh. A riot policeman runs past in pursuit of two black youths carrying a looted hi-fi, because this is, like, gritty south London you know. He pretends not to notice the shagging couple. Amanda's mobile rings. She answers it.

Amanda: Hi. Tasha! Yeah, it's a bit of a bad time. [flashes a grin at Jack] Yeah, I'm indulging Jack in a rather sad attempt at rekindling our already-stale but not-married relationship which has hit a bit of a sticky patch since my thirtieth birthday.

Jack: Do you mind?

Amanda: [covers mouthpiece] I'm talking to my sister who works for Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Transport Keith Hill MP, the political idealist!

Jack: [voiceover] I knew that our relationship was in trouble, but I didn't think Amanda knew that I knew. But she's changed since she turned 30, and I didn't like what she'd turned into.

Aerial shot of London skyline. Zoom in on sleek office block. There is only one light on. Office central London. Night.

Louise Lombard is alone doing some photocopying. The light of the copier makes her look rather beautiful. The voice of James Purefoy makes her jump.

James: [out of vision] You look rather beautiful in that light.

Louise: You made me jump.

James: We're 18 floors up in the offices of a top London law firm, Louise - I wouldn't advise you to jump.

Louise: Damn. Paper jam.

Louise is clearly uncomfortable in James's presence. She opens the photocopier to try to unjam it. James moves in like a tiger.

James: Here, let me.

James slides behind her, puts his arms around her and helps her retrieve the jammed sheet of A4. She closes her eyes but does not resist.

Louise: [melting] It's all right, I can do it.

James: What are you worried about? Your husband? Your one-year-old child?

Louise: [covering] I have to get these important legal documents photocopied before the morning. It's an important legal case I'm working on. If I want to be the firm's hottest up-and-coming young, 30-year-old lawyer...

James kisses her neck.

James: Oh, you're hot all right. Remember the conference in Runcorn?

Louise: The little green 'paper jam' light is still flashing.

James: It sure is.

Louise melts into his arms.

Child's bedroom. Clapham. Night. A one-year-old child is crying in its cot. Andrew Lincoln enters, wearing boxer shorts and a Manchester United top. He looks tired.

Andrew: Hey, what's the matter, Georgie? Come on! I know Mummy should be home, but she's working late at the office - again. [He picks up the child and comforts him, manfully.] I know, I wish she'd stop working late too. Sometimes I think she's more interested in her career as a top lawyer than me and you. Come on, let's go to the kitchen and see if there's any Edge pizza from Pizza Hut left. The toppings go right to the edge!

Next day. Dinky little market. Balham. Hugo Speer is serving an old lady apples and pears off his fruit and veg stall. The old ladies obviously love him and his chirpy working-class manner.

Hugo: There you go, love. I put an extra Bartlett in for the weekend for you.

Old lady: Ooh, you are kind.

Tasha (Natasha) Little watches Hugo from a distance, admiringly. She approaches him as he busies himself rearranging his courgettes.

Tasha: Those courgettes look firm.

Hugo: [surprised] Alright Tash! Shouldn't you be at work at that independent TV production company which you part-own?

Tasha: [seductively] Actually I'm researching a drama we're thinking of pitching about a working-class market trader.

Hugo: [suspicious] Oh yeah? I hope you won't be patronising the working classes by casting a clearly middle-class actor in the role.

Tasha: [snaps] Don't take it out on me, Hugo. I know why you're cross. You're approaching your thirtieth birthday and you're feeling left on the shelf, like an old cauliflower. Well, you could have had me that night at Andrew's thirtieth, but you blew it, and I married someone posh who you now resent.

Hugo: What, that ginger-headed twat? I've never been jealous of anyone ginger in my life.

Tasha's mobile rings. She answers it, regarding Hugo with a mixture of lust, bitterness, envy, a sense of deep loss, regret and the insecurity of living in a big Victorian house in an area with a high crime rate and no residents' parking.

Tasha: Hello. Dervla! Where are you?

Kitchen. Clapham. Day. Dervla Kirwan is clutching a cordless phone and lying on the floor, surrounded by empty vodka bottles and mixed salad leaves. She is clearly drunk.

Dervla: I was trying to make a vinaigrette like Jamie does off the telly, but I think I put too much alcohol in. [sobbing] Oh, Tash, can you - hic - come round? Matt, my wayward live-in northern boyfriend, has left me.

Evocative aerial shot of Clapham, full of young people having their hair cut and going to bars. Don't you wish you lived here? It's got ethnic minorities and crime and everything.

Wine bar. Clapham. Day. Matt (Matthew) Rhys and Jack are having a pint. Matt is disconsolate and has an Oasis haircut.

Matt: So I fookin' left her. I couldn't stand her fookin' drinking any more. For fook's sake, man. She's been like this since her Dad died after a long battle with cancer and we all went to Manchester for the funeral and her better-looking sister Helen got off with Hugo just after he'd split up with Tash.

Jack: Yeah, I remember. Was I with Amanda then, or Louise?

Matt: No, Andrew and Louise were already together. You were shagging the actress who was in Cold Feet for a couple of episodes.

Jack: Sometimes I envy you being 29, mate. Your whole life is spread out in front of you.

Matt: But you're an ambitious financial journalist. Sometimes I envy you. And you're obviously getting on great with Amanda.

Jack: [voiceover] I know he fancies Amanda. I've seen the way he shouts at the screen when Family Fortunes is on. And now that he's split with Dervla, that leaves the field wide open. Perhaps it's my chance to shag Dervla.

Front room. Clapham. Night.

A dinner party. Jack, Matt and the Ginger Bloke are discussing old children's TV programmes from the Seventies. Hugo is eyeing up Tasha. Helen McCrory is eyeing up Count Vronsky (Kevin McKidd). Dervla is eyeing up a bottle of liqueur in a donkey-shaped bottle which Andrew and Louise brought back from Barcelona. Amanda brings in a double-nut chocolate torte with 30 candles.

Amanda: Happy birthday to you...

They all join in, except Andrew, who looks embarrassed.

All: Happy birthday dear And-roooo! Happy birthday to you! Speech! Speech!

Andrew stands up.

Andrew: Well, first of all, I'd like to thank you all for coming. When we were at college together somewhere other than London - except you, Ginger Bloke, you were at Oxbridge because you're posh - we all promised we'd always be there for one another, even when we'd all turned 30. Well, now there's only Matt to go. [They all look at Matt]. I have a message for Matt, actually. Matt, have you ever been to The Edge?

Tasha: Oh God, he's going to plug Pizza Hut again. I can't wait for Andrew to get a new voiceover!

Andrew: No, wait, I mean, have you ever shagged my wife?

There is a stunned silence round the table. The mood turns nasty.

Matt: I don't know what you're talking about, mate. Your wife is the only one of us I'm not fookin' shagging.

Sound of a baby crying.

Andrew: I'll see to him. As usual!

Andrew storms off.

Dervla: [to Matt] You fucking - hic! - ocrite!

Amanda: Anyone for some torte? I got it out of Jamie's book.

Jack: I've got it! The little hopping creatures on The Clangers were called Froglets!

Everyone relaxes and starts laughing again. Louise goes off to find Andrew.

Stairs. Clapham. Night. Andrew is slumped on the landing. There are paint pots and bits of wood and plastic sheeting everywhere - they've got the builders in doing a loft conversion for £35,000. Louise hands Andrew a slice of torte.

Louise: I thought you'd like some of this.

Andrew: I've got a nut allergy. I thought you'd know that after 14 months of marriage!

Louise: I do have a life outside of our kitchen, you know! And you spend so much time in the shed, I hardly know you any more.

Andrew: Fourteen months! Where did they all go? God, we're turning into our parents! Do you know what? I prefer Top Of The Pops 2 to Top Of The Pops !

The doorbell goes.

Louise: I wonder who that can be? After all, we're all here, and we don't know anybody else.

Andrew: I think I'm gay.

Front door. Clapham. Night. Amanda opens the door. It is her ageing former lover and commissioning editor Peter Bowles.

Peter: I knew you'd be here. [bitterly] Someone's thirtieth birthday is it?

Amanda: What are you doing here?

Peter: I want to rekindle our controversial affair with the big age difference.

[Without warning, a man pushes between them and runs out of the house carrying their DVD player and an Ikea lamp.]

I say, was that a burglar?

Amanda: How did he get in? Oh, life's too complicated! I've got a yeast infection and I've lost my Waitrose reward card! Oh, Peter, I need someone a bit older who understands me!

They snog, watched by Hugo, who is having a piss in the garden because he's common. The 1976 Tina Charles hit 'I Love To Love' swells on the soundtrack. It was the name of the episode, remember? Brilliant!