The book? Irritating. The TV drama? Just gorgeous
Normal People BBC1, Monday Van Der Valk ITV, Sunday
N
ormal People is terrific, absolutely gorgeous, up there with the best TV dramas of recent years, like Patrick Melrose and My Brilliant Friend, but possibly not Belgravia.* It is based on the novel by Sally Rooney and follows the complicated on-off romance between Marianne and Connell, from school through to graduating from university. While I did lose patience with the book – many times I just wanted to bang Marianne and Connell’s heads together; the twentysomethings in this household said it was because I’m ‘too old’ – I was transfixed by this TV adaptation, which has to make it better than the book? And nothing to do with being ‘too old’? (Is that right?, she queries, desperately.)
With a script by Rooney and directed by Lenny Abrahamson, there are 12 half-hour episodes now available to binge-watch on iPlayer, and it’s being shown on BBC1 as a double bill on Monday nights. I have seen it all, compulsively, relentlessly, but will talk about it in general terms so as not to spoil it for those watching week by week – you’re welcome.
It stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Marianne and Paul Mescal as Connell, and they are both superb. It is set, initially, in Sligo, Ireland, where the two are in sixth form. Marianne is smart but a friendless outsider, while Connell is popular and sporty, with a mother who cleans Marianne’s family’s house. (There is a big wealth differential.) The two embark on a secret relationship – he does not want their peers to know, he cannot yet account for his attraction to Marianne – and then, like figure skaters, they dance together, move apart, dance together, move apart, and so on down the years. (But not accompanied by Bolero.)
It is exceptional in every way, with intimate camerawork that rarely strays from the faces of the two leads, a musical score that is delicate rather than intrusive and teenage characters who are multi-layered and never clichéd. You will root for both, and the exceptional connection they have despite their differences. Before they have sex for the first time – such a beautiful, wonderfully tender scene – she tells him: ‘You never give an opinion about anything – ever.’ He replies: ‘ You just always know what you think.’ A beat. And then he shyly adds: ‘I like that.’ It doesn’t fare so well on the page, admittedly. But the fact is, you know them before they know themselves.
This asks a number of questions. Can one person ever be ‘too good’ for anyone else? Can one person change another? Is it OK not to know what you want? My one complaint is that Marianne from the book is not a looker, whereas Edgar- Jones is stunning. Can’t ‘plain’ girls have interior lives too? But aside from that, this is absolutely g o rgeous. And terrific. Unlike, say, Van
Der Valk. This is ITV’s remake of the detective show that started in the 1970s, which I personally remember, being so ‘old’, and is a series mostly remembered for being set in Amsterdam, starring Barry Foster and for the chart-topping theme tune that your mum had on a 45rpm record (Eye Level by the Simon Park Orchestra). This time out it’s still in Amsterdam but the theme tune has been dropped, more or less – there is only the slightest echo of it – and it stars Marc Warren, who looks part Gordon Ramsay, part Malcolm McDowell, and has to say lines like ‘In Amsterdam anything is possible’, apart from, perhaps, explaining why the city’s entire police force is English. Nope. Not a word about that.
This Van Der Valk is one of those worldweary detectives who is a bit of a loner, although early on we do see him on a date. ‘Your online profile doesn’t say what you do,’ says the woman. ‘I’m a… quantum physicist,’ he lies, world-wearily. She is blown away. She loves quantum physics. She starts talking about molecules and atoms and string theory while he zones out, until finally coming back with: ‘Shall we skip starters and go straight to mains?’ So – hang on – she’s the most interesting person in the room, you’ve just lied to her, yet she’s the object of our contempt? That was all I needed to know about this version of Van Der Valk right there, but I persisted for the next two hours because I’m a professional.
So I persisted, and my reward? A highly convoluted story involving a murder here, a murder there, extreme right- wing politics, extreme leftwing politics, a chopped- off finger, and Van Der Valk having sex with an a t t r a c t i ve s uspect (nice). Maybe my professional standards did slip and I did drift off ( i nto a coma). Either that or it didn’t make much sense. Whatever the truth, we were certainly never told what to care about. Not a hint, not a clue, not a whisper. So no, there is only one drama you need watch this week. And it isn’t this.
*One day I will stop taking digs at Belgravia. That day is not today.