Airdate: Normal People

Critically acclaimed drama Normal People is having a Free to Air premiere next week at SBS.

Adapted for television by Sally Rooney, based on her best-selling novel, and co-written with Alice Birch and Mark O’Rowe, the 12-part drama stars Daisy Edgar-Jones (Cold Feet) as Marianne and newcomer Paul Mescal as Connell, in a modern love story about how two people can profoundly impact each other’s lives.

The series, which is an Element Pictures production for BBC and Hulu, was shot in Dublin, Sligo, Sweden and Italy with directors Lenny Abrahamson (Room) and Hettie Macdonald (Howard’s End).

Also featuring are Sarah Greene (Dublin Murders) and Aislín McGuckin (Outlander).

This previously screened on Stan (TVT review is here).

In a school in a small-town west of Ireland, Connell (Paul Mescal) is a well-liked, good looking and athletic football player. Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is a proud, intimidating, and unpopular loner who actively avoids her classmates and challenges teachers’ authority. Sparks fly between the two when Connell comes to pick up his mother Lorraine (Sarah Greene) from her job at Marianne’s house and a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers – one they are determined to conceal from their peers. A compulsive modern love story, Normal People sees the pair weave in and out of each other’s lives and explores just how complicated intimacy and young love can be.

Episode One:
In modern, rural Ireland, Connell and Marianne, on different ends of the school’s social scene, begin an intense, secret affair.

Episode Two:
Marianne and Connell’s affair continues, but the pressures of the outside world start to take their toll.

Double Episode/Thursday, 25 May at 9.30pm on SBS.