Sally Rooney's Normal People to debut in far from normal times 

Rooney’s New York Times best-selling novel "Normal People" will soon come to our small screens when the highly anticipated new television series based on the book premieres with all 12 episodes from Wednesday, April 29 on Hulu.

Tracking the tender but complicated relationship of Marianne and Connell from the end of their secondary school days in small-town west of Ireland to their stormy  undergraduate years at Trinity College, it's a low key prince and pauper tale with some unexpected depth. 

At school Connell is the GAA playing popular kid, while she’s lonely and intimidating outcast (who can also be, let's face it, a bit of a pill).

Things change for both of them one afternoon when Connell stops by to pick up his mother from her house cleaning job at Marianne’s rather stately home, where an instant and unexpected connection grows between the two teenagers - one that they are both determined to conceal. 

Flash forward a year later and they’re both studying in Dublin. But this time Marianne has found her feet and her tribe in a new social world, with Connell hanging at the side lines, now it's his turn to be the shy and uncertain one surrounded by her bougie friends.

"Normal People" explores the tensions and attractions that bring them together as the pair weave in and out of each other’s lives and it explores just how complicated intimacy and young love can be. 

The series stars 21 year old British actress Daisy Edgar-Jones (War of the Worlds) as Marianne, and Irish actor Paul Mescal, 24, in his first television role as Connell. Director Lenny Abrahamson (best known for Room) has directed the first six with Hettie McDonald directing the final six. 

Adapted by Sally Rooney and Mark O’Rowe, Normal People is a 12-episode 30-minute drama series produced by the Irish Element Pictures production company that brought us The Favourite, The Lobster and Dublin Murders.

Keep an eye on this page for an upcoming review before broadcast.