Conversations With Friends

[Discordant Resonance]

So after Normal People became a viral sensation during the first lockdown, now it's the turn of Sally Rooney's first work to get the small screen treatment with the first two episodes airing this evening on BBC Three and later in the week on RTE. The tale of a ménage a quatre could transform the image of Joe Alwyn in terms of fame in his own right, rather than reflected through his musical other half, while Alison Oliver could shoot to fame in Daisy Edgar-Jones fashion.

[Hot Pepsi]

I’m finding the Bobbi and Melissa characters a bit irritating.

[E10 Rifle]

Yeah same here. I absolutely loved Normal People, which made me properly blub, and am a fan of Rooney in general (whose detractors tend to be the most tedious middle-aged dullards), but three episodes in, Conversations With Friends could do with a bit more oomph and spark, a bit more, well, conversation. Connell and Marianne in NP - for all their repressions - were people you empathised with and rooted for, and got what they felt strongly about, but there's not so much of that here.

[San Bernardhinault]

am a fan of Rooney in general (whose detractors tend to be the most tedious middle-aged dullards)

I feel attacked. Although the description is also not inaccurate.

To be fair, Conversations With Friends is the only book of hers I've read, so I'm really only a detractor of the one book rather than the entire ouevre.

[Hot Pepsi]

As a middle-aged dullard, I kinda take that personally.
But I haven't read Conversations With Friends and, if it's at all like the first few episodes of the show, don't think I ever will. I don't need any more input from clever-but-not-as-clever-as-they-think-they-are college students who think they know everything.

I liked Normal People although it was a bit sad.

[Duncan Gardner]

I'm with E10 Rifle . Watched Episode 1 and yes it wasn't action packed. Although we did get a brief visit to Dublin University Library. Looking even more brutalist than I remember

[Lang Spoon]

I love that library. Way more than the moody culchies in love or not show.

[Duncan Gardner]

My attention may have wandered but wasn't only one of the 4 main characters a Culchie (Cork)?

[Lang Spoon]

Weren't the main pair from Shligo? That's where they went to school anyways.

[Duncan Gardner]

You're a series behind

[E10 Rifle]

Connell and Marianne from Normal People are from Sligo. Is Frances off of Conversations supposed to be from Cork? Not the city by the looks

[Duncan Gardner]

The actress playing Frances is from Cork. OK, I know Judi Dench is hardly BT15 but still. Bobbi and Melissa explain in Episode 1 that they're from New York and London