Xuenou > Popular > Anita Singh's verdict on Conversations with Friends: watchable without any wow factor
Anita Singh's verdict on Conversations with Friends: watchable without any wow factor
Sally Rooney’s glum characters get an outing in a chemistry-free drama that isn’t a patch on Normal People

Anita Singh's verdict on Conversations with Friends: watchable without any wow factor

After the all-conquering hit that was Normal People, the same team has brought us another Sally Rooney adaptation, Conversations with Friends (BBC Three). But lightning doesn’t strike twice. Where the former was a story with universal appeal – who doesn’t remember their first love? – this one is more niche. Although if you’re a bisexual Irish performance poet having an affair with an older actor while your ex-girlfriend enjoys a flirtation with his wife, then this may chime with you.

We’re back in Rooney’s world, one in which young people earnestly discuss communism and characters say things like: “I always thought of writing as some sort of desire for permanence.” I enjoy Rooney’s books but it’s difficult to read her without thinking: cheer up, love, it might never happen.

The central romance is between shy university student Frances (an impressive performance from newcomer Alison Oliver) and Nick (Joe Alwyn), an unhappy actor who is married to a successful author, Melissa (Jemima Kirke from Girls, perfectly cast). Alwyn is the show’s main problem. Yes, his character is supposed to be introverted. But Alwyn plays him at such a low key that he may as well not have turned up. This isn’t helped by his voice, which sounds exactly like Whispering Bob Harris except for the times when Alwyn goes a bit Irish, although that mostly only happens on words ending in “t” and “d”.

As with Normal People, there are plenty of sex scenes, tenderly shot by the same director, Lenny Abrahamson. But there is no spark between the two leads, meaning no explanation as to their mutual attraction, apart from the fact they’re as awkward as each other.

Rooney throws in an alcoholic dad and some endometriosis, just to lighten the mood. Thank goodness for Kirke and for Sasha Lane as Bobbi, Francis’s best friend and former girlfriend – their characters are extroverts and easy conversationalists, both of which are sorely needed to pep things up. And Oliver does such good work as Frances, all vulnerability and studied insouciance, that you want to see how her story ends.

Perhaps because it’s in easily digestible half-hour episodes, the series is pretty watchable. I binged quite a few in one go, but more in hope than expectation that it would catch fire.