Friends in high places

After the soaraway success of Normal People, author Sally Rooney is back with a steamy story of lovers and relationships

If you spent 2020 obsessing over Normal People, you’ll be hooked on Conversations With Friends.

After winning acclaim with the former, author Sally Rooney has had another book adapted into a TV series. This time, it follows the story of college students and former lovers Frances and Bobbi who become embroiled in a relationship with an older couple, all set against the backdrop of the Dublin literary scene.

Directed by Lenny Abrahamson, with Joe Alwyn and Jemima Kirke in leading roles, this is a saucy drama you won’t want to miss. Here is everything you need to know...

The ploT

The show will centre on Frances and her best friend and ex-girlfriend Bobbi, who are college students in Dublin. As the pair are performing spoken-word poetry, they are noticed by Melissa – a photographer in her early thirties.

Melissa decides to invite the teenagers back to the home she shares with her actor husband Nick. Their lives become more and more entwined as Frances begins an affair with Nick, while Bobbi and Melissa also grow close.

The auThor

Conversations With Friends is the debut novel by Sally, who wrote it while she was studying her masters degree in American literature. It won her the Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award.

Her follow-up novel, Normal People, became the first of her books to be adapted for television, earning four Primetime Emmy Award nominations.

Sally’s third novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, was released last year, becoming a New York Times bestseller.

The sTars

Newcomer Alison Oliver, 23, plays Frances in the drama, already cementing herself within the Sally Rooney universe as she counts Normal People stars Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones as friends.

Sasha Lane, 26, who is best known for playing Hunter C-20 in the Disney+ series Loki, stars opposite Alison as Bobbi.

Girls and Sex Education star Jemima Kirke, 36, portrays Melissa in the series. Previously described as “one of the best actresses and stars on any screen in a very long time,” Jemima says she used a “stream of consciousness” approach to the role.

She said: “If I’m playing a wife in a troubled marriage, I won’t think about my own marriage because then I’m putting myself into it and that’s not the job.” Rounding out the cast is Joe Alwyn, 31, who last year won a Grammy for his work on girlfriend Taylor Swift’s album, Folklore. Discussing the show’s sex scenes, Joe said: “They’re essentially choreographed. So they’re like fight scenes. They’re quite mechanical. And obviously they’re weird, funny, strange things to do with your friends. But when Lenny’s in the room, cracking jokes, and there’s 10 crew members around, and it’s freezing cold or boiling hot, it just takes all the sexiness out of it.”

four’s COMPANY Sasha Lane, Joe Alwyn, Alison Oliver and Jemima Kirke star in drama. Above, Jemima as Melissa

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