It would have been an unlikely gathering under any other circumstances.

Some of the most powerful people in Scottish business and banking rubbing shoulders with the stars of the silver screen.

The occasion was the premiere of Four Weddings and A Funeral writer Richard Curtis’ latest film, The Girl in the Cafe, which combines romantic comedy with the issue of Third World poverty.

The film’s premiere was held at the Capital’s Cameo Cinema last night ahead of next month’s G8 summit in Gleneagles and the massive Make Poverty History march in Edinburgh.

The glittering first night was attended by star actors Bill Nighy, Kelly Macdonald and Ken Stott, as well as Curtis, Britain’s most successful screenwriter. Alongside them were some of the most influential figures in Scottish business and politics in an event organised by multi-millionaire entrepreneur Tom Hunter.

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Millionaire Tom Hunter gathered together an impressive array of people for Thursday night’s premiere of The Girl in the Cafe at Edinburgh’s Cameo cinema in the first event to give the city a real taste of the forthcoming G8-related events.

Banker Sir Angus Grossart and oil giant Bill Gammell rubbed shoulders with Chancellor Gordon Brown and the film’s stars Bill Nighy, Kelly Macdonald and Ken Stott, as Hunter and screenwriter Richard Curtis explained the nakedly political background to the movie.

The simple message of the film - that politicians should cut out the posturing and the doublespeak and simply sort out the unimaginable human tragedy that blights most of Africa- echoes Sir Bob Geldof’s blunt approach to the continent’s complex problems.

Whilst solutions might not be found as quickly as the click of the fingers that Kelly Macdonald uses to illustrate the speed with which African children’s lives are lost, nevertheless the answers are easy to find if there is sufficient will.

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Shy, workaholic civil servant meets young woman, courts her in fumbling, hesitant manner, then whisks her off for a weekend break.

So far, so Richard Curtis. But the weekend break in question - a G8 summit in Reykjavik - suggests that this is no ordinary romantic comedy from the man who gave us Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral.

But then Curtis’s new television film, The Girl In The CafĂ©, has a more ambitious agenda. Britain’s best known screenwriter is aiming not only to entertain but to highlight the extreme poverty in Africa, which accounts for the lives of 30,000 children a day - one every three seconds.

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Every day, poverty kills 30,000 children in Africa alone. It is preventable. Here The Observer starts the 50-day run-in to the G8 summit in Scotland, where world leaders have one final chance to Make Poverty History

She turned from the Prime Minister’s gaze and clicked her slender pale fingers. Around her, the eight most powerful men in the world sat open-mouthed, gawping at the generous dollops of souffle laid before them. Click. ‘There they go,’ Gina said, her delicate features flushed with quiet rage. Click. ‘And another one.’

Britain’s Prime Minister stared at the floor. Across the vast dining table, his Chancellor buried his face in his palms. They knew precisely what the three clicks meant. They knew that every three seconds of every day a child in Africa dies from extreme poverty. And as they gaped at the lavish banquet to mark the final supper of the G8 summit, they too knew that the 100 million African youngsters on the brink of starvation would never dare dream of the scraps they would leave.

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They are the leaders of the Western world who will meet in closed session in Scotland this summer to debate global affairs. He is the master of romantic comedy with some of the biggest films in British box-office history to his credit.

The grey-suited worlds of President Bush, Tony Blair and the six other powerful heads of the G8 countries rarely clash with the Hollywood glitz of hotshot British film director Richard Curtis. But Edinburgh will be the venue for just such an event this summer.

Following the runaway success of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Love Actually, Curtis has made a film against the background of a G8 summit.

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