The sex scenes - which were coordinated by an intimacy coordinator - have generated some controversy in Ireland callers to Irish national broadcaster RTE Radio were appalled by the nudity and sexual content, one asking: 'Is the national broadcaster promoting fornication?'īut many have praised the series' frank depictions of sex. Intimacy coordinator Ita O'Brien says the couple's first sex scene took an entire day to shoot. Sex is central to the original book - the couple are able to communicate more effectively in bed than anywhere else - and in adapting the series, Rooney (who co-wrote the first five episodes) and her collaborators Alice Birch (a British playwright-turned-screenwriter who is best known for her work on HBO's Succession), Mark O'Rowe (an Irish playwright-turned-screenwriter) and directors Lenny Abrahamson (Room) and Hettie Macdonald (Howard's End), haven't shied away from it.

'It's a series of very first-world problems that it depicts … and I appreciate that some people might find the narrative speed a little bit of a slow burn, but I think that misses the point,' Strong says. While Strong considers the series to be 'exquisite' he also recognises Normal People can be a polarising watch. He also points to the effectiveness of both the production design (Lucy Van Lonkhuyen) and the cinematography (Suzie Lavelle and Hettie Macdonald) in bringing the viewer so deeply into the experiences of the central couple. Strong agrees: 'The performances are some of the best I've seen on screen.' 'I think both of them are so great as actors - they just sort of embody, in the way they look at each other, these confused feelings and this storm of emotions,' Di Rosso says. The series' potency hinges on Edgar-Jones and Mescal's performances. But those feelings are our companions, the foundations of our adult emotional lives'. They transform and sour, recede and resurface. 'What this work captures is the sort of halting beauty of first love, in all of its intensity, all of its uncertainty, and it's something authentic and recognisable,' Strong says.īuzzfeed reporter Anne Helen Petersen writes that the series 'understands that our teenage feelings never actually leave us. 'The single greatest reason why I think people are responding so intensely to Normal People is the quality of the love story,' says Sam Strong, theatre director and chair of Melbourne Fringe Festival. The series traces the two through the throes of first love and onto university as the lovers are magnetically drawn together only to keep falling apart. Marianne is bullied by her peers (who she treats with disdain) but soon the chemistry between Marianne and Connell bubbles over and they begin secretly sleeping together.

Normal people novel