IT’S a quest that has dominated people’s lives since the dawn of time, yet meeting the love of your life is usually depicted as a young person’s game.
Enter Miranda Hart. Appearing on The One Show last week to discuss her new book, I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest with You, the actress and comedian revealed that she became a “young bride at 51″, adding that “it’s just so lovely”.
In fact, Hart said she didn’t meet “her person” until she was 49 and their story is “a little undercurrent” in her new memoir. “I’m not going to reveal how we met as that is a little bit of a twist,” she continued. “He’s my best friend, we have the best fun and I’m just thrilled to be a young bride at 51.”
As the star of several shows including her semi-autobiographical sitcom Miranda, the hit BBC drama Call the Midwife and the 2015 action film Spy, Hart has amassed a legion of fans (including me) over the years. All of which were quick to offer their congratulations.
One fan joked on X: “Congratulations to you both Miranda. It’s better to wait long than to marry wrong.”
However, this trend does seem to be spreading. With Netflix’s top new romcom Nobody Wants This centring round a love story played out by people in their 40s, a fourth Bridget Jones film on the horizon, a second season of My Mum, Your Dad recently on ITV and endless hype around the next season of Sex and the City spin off And Just Like That, there is clearly an appetite for love stories that take place later in life.
It’s not hard to understand why. There is something refreshing about watching people fall in love when they have a strong sense of who they are. They are much less likely to mess each other around because they have a better idea of what they are looking for.
For so long, the only ‘love stories’ we’ve been shown in popular culture are between 20-somethings who are looking to have fun, meet new people and potentially boost their social media following. As is the script of almost every popular reality dating show…
Otherwise, as Normal People captured so perfectly during lockdown, young love is often contingent on the excruciating thrill of a will-they-won’t-they relationship, which is more akin to people who don’t yet have the experience to recognise what they want.
While these stories have their place, there should be more room for healthy, meaningful and ‘unconventional’ relationships between people over the age of 40 too.
They are unconventional in the sense that they are not regularly depicted in film and TV. More often than not when dating in midlife is explored on screen, it’s usually (unfairly) seen as a last chance saloon situation. At least one of the characters is divorced or widowed and are now having another crack at romance like in 2013’s Enough Said or 1998’s You’ve Got Mail.
However, that doesn’t mean they are unconventional in the real world. In fact, Hart’s story, Joanne and Noah in Nobody Wants This, Carrie and Aidan in AJLT and Bridget (spoiler) in Mad About the Boy all hold a mirror up to society where there are relationships are starting, strengthening and thriving everywhere, all the time. Whether that be for the first, second or seventh time.
Gone are the days when the default love story is about people who settle down with their childhood sweetheart – who they conveniently align with and find continuously interesting, exciting and supportive throughout their lives – and stay together forever. Love comes in many forms and can arrive at any age, it’s not just the reserve of the young and it’s good to see that being recognised and celebrated at last.
