After The Love Has Gone:You & Me.

Nobody gets murdered, nobody gets raped, nobody dies of a drug overdose, and nobody even gets arrested. Compared to most of the television I've watched in recent years You & Me (ITVX, created by Jamie Davies and with Russell T. Davies as one of the executive producers - whatever that means) was incredibly lightweight, some would even say twee, but it carried quite a powerful punch in places. 

An iron fist in a velvet glove! It tells the story, the love story, of Ben (Harry Lawtey) and Jess (Sophia Brown). A young couple living in leafy South London who first meet when they nearly fall in to each other running for, and then missing, the number 23 bus. Ben asks her for a drink - a can on the next bus it seems, they fall in love, move in together, and soon Jess is pregnant with twins.

It's the kind of textbook meet cute you'd expect in a fairly traditional rom-com and, in many ways, You & Me is a romcom but the fact that Ben is telling the story, now on his own, while sitting forlorn in a bus shelter tells you straight away that something has gone badly wrong. It's not long before we find out just what.

Everywhere Ben looks there are memories of what was, and reminders of what should have been. Ben says he's not had a drink because if he started he wouldn't be able to stop. He says he's not had a cry for the same reason. He makes heartbreaking speeches about how unfair life is and there's a really moving scene when he has to tell his twin children about the mother they never got to know.

Linda (Julie Hesmondhalgh), Ben's Everything But The Girl t-shirt wearing mum, is down from Oldham offering emotional support to Ben in the wake of things going wrong and Ben's boss/friend, Dee (Genesis Lynea), thinks that, as a journalist - and one that doesn't seem to do a lot of work, he should write about his experience but Ben's not ready for that.

With Jess gone, Ben's got his hands full bringing up the twins, Poppy (Isabella Tyson) and Jack (Lucas Tyson), and he's certainly not ready to enter into a new relationship as we see on a night out with his friend James (Stevee Davies). James thinks Ben needs to get 'back out there' but Ben is clearly still in love with Jess.

But when he interviews Emma (Jessica Barden), an actor in her first big role something changes in him. It's clear from the off that they like each other. Could she be the one to 'fix' Ben? What's her story? Why does she wear a necklace with Joey written on it and who is Harry and what's his role in her life? We know Ben's story but now we, and Ben, need to discover Emma's?

With three hours to fill it is obvious that the path to true love will not be a straight one. It never is. At times, You & Me relies on a huge number of coincidences to get to the ending but that's not really a criticism. It seems fairly obvious what will happen but it never seems obvious how it will happen. The makers of You & Me make sure they take us for a ride on the ol' emotional rollercoaster and though we know what the correct ending to this story should be we find ourselves wondering if that will ever come to pass.

I enjoyed all the very familiar South London locations (Peckham Library, Tower Bridge, the Trafalgar Tavern in Greenwich, Brockwell Lido, Potters Field Park, Telegraph Hill Park, and was that Frank's Cafe at Bold Tendencies?) and I also loved that lots of scenes took place on the upper deck of a bus (that's the London I live and breath) but I was also impressed with the soundtrack by Vince Pope. I thought it had something of the Johann Johannsson about it, maybe even a bit of Sigur Ros.

Performances all round were excellent. Special mentions should go to Lily Newmark as Emma's sister, Ben Starr as Emma's suitor, Michael Fatogun as an ex-boyfriend of Jess's who may hold the key to something that's been on Ben's mind, and Andi Osho and Clarence Smith as Pam and Charlie, Jess's parents.

Of course, Hesmondhalgh is great but the main plaudits should go to the three young leads. Lawtey, Brown, and Barden are all excellent. Though their characters often seem too good to be true they still remain believable. At least while you're suspended in the drama.

A drama that touches on religion, grief, and closure but, more than anything else, asks the question what do we owe those that are no longer with us and what do we owe ourselves? A drama that asks ourselves what we should sacrifice for love. As You & Me moves on it doesn't stop piling on the pathos and it does it very effectively. What a lovely thing it was to see a drama in which people suffering deep and lasting emotional pain were still able to show humour and kindness to each other. People like that deserve love. But will they get it?