Normal People

Lenny Abrahamson on how Normal People inadvertently became a year-defining show for 2020

Lenny Abrahamson on the set of Normal People (credit: Element Pictures/ Enda Bowe)

While we all tuned into Normal People to escape the news, executive producer and co-director Lenny Abrahamson tuned into the news to escape Normal People. Or, at least, he tried to.

"I remember thinking, ‘I'm just going to listen to something really depressing that has nothing to do with arts and culture," he says. "So I switched on Brexitcast, and the first few words were them talking about watching Normal People over the weekend. I just thought, ‘Oh, Jesus!’”

"I didn’t think we’d have a mass audience at all, none of us did." 

The buzz around The Listeners, a new drama from the indie behind Normal People

Rebecca Hall stands in a classroom, hands on her face and eyes closed, as if in pain

BBC Television’s new four-parter The Listeners is that rare thing – a drama that teases and tantalises, unwilling to offer the viewer easy answers.

The series is adapted by the Canadian author Jordan Tannahill from his novel of the same name, and made by Element Pictures, the Dublin indie behind Normal People and Conversations with Friends. It revolves round Claire, an English teacher whose contented life is disrupted when she starts hearing a persistent hum that no one around her seems to hear.

A Good Girl’s Guide to TV Adaptations

Emma Myers sits indoors, looking contemplative

On paper, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder has all the hallmarks of a top-tier series. Originally published in 2019, Holly Jackson’s young adult novel is a cultural phenomenon, going viral on TikTok, winning the British Book Awards’ Children’s Fiction Book of the Year in 2020, and the hearts of its two million readers.

As well as being known intellectual property, it feeds into the thirst for TV crime drama, and for young adult shows in the vein of Heartstopper and Sex Education.

The complex genesis of Conversations with Friends

Normal People was the TV hit of the first Covid lockdown, a comfort blanket of a series that offered respite from what was a new and terrifying virus.

Viewers tuned into Marianne and Connell’s love story, adapted from Sally Rooney’s second book, in huge numbers. It became BBC Three’s ­biggest-ever series and the iPlayer’s most popular show of 2020, racking up more than 60 million streams in just eight months. Worldwide, it won countless awards.

BBC Three: Back at home on linear-TV

In two months’ time, almost six years to the day that BBC Three became a solely internet network in order to save money, the service is returning as a linear channel. Arguably, it’s not a moment too soon. For, along with every other traditional broadcaster, the BBC is grappling with how to attract younger audiences and compete effectively with the streamers.  

Paul Mescal talks mental health, complex love and that famous silver chain

Credit: BBC

The role of Connell Waldron was his first acting credit outside of drama school and the buzz around his performance is still continuing over a year later. 

“To still be in the conversation is really exciting and gratifying,” says Mescal, who was nominated for an RTS Award for his role in the hit series.  

Mescal’s meteoric rise to stardom at the start of a global pandemic is far from the ‘conventional’ way to break into the industry. 

Normal People's Daisy Edgar-Jones talks awkward auditions, literary adaptations and Where The Crawdads Sing

Credit: BBC

With the world stuck indoors, the adaptation of Sally Rooney's best-selling novel was the perfect recipe for a lockdown sensation. It captured the hearts of viewers, before breaking them and putting them back together again. 

Before its television debut, Normal People already had a loyal legion of literary fans, including star Daisy Edgar-Jones. 

Normal People: A lockdown sensation

A year ago, Normal People became the huge TV hit of the first lockdown, changing the lives of its young stars, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal, overnight.

The adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel was the BBC’s most-streamed series of last year, clocking up almost 63 million views on iPlayer in the eight months following its April launch.