Conversations with Friends: BBC drops first trailer for Sally Rooney adaptation

Clip offers a glimpse of illicit kisses and fraught dinner table conversations

The BBC has released the first trailer for its new Sally Rooney adaptation, Conversations with Friends.

The drama, based on the Irish author’s debut novel, follows 21-year-old college student Frances (newcomer Alison Oliver) as she navigates a series of relationships that force her to confront her own vulnerabilities for the first time.

In the book, Frances and her best friend Bobbi develop a close but strange relationship with an older married couple, Nick and Melissa. As time passes, Frances and Nick begin an affair.

Alongside Oliver, the show stars Sasha Lane (American Honey) as Bobbi, Joe Alwyn (The Favourite) as Nick and Jemima Kirke (Girls) as Melissa.

Conversations with Friends will air on BBC Three in spring.

In the trailer, which you can watch here, Frances is seen asking Nick if they are “bad people”. In another scene, Melissa asks Frances, “There’s nothing else I should know about with Nick, is there?”

Bobbi, Nick, Frances, Melissa (BBC)

The new series comes from the same creative team who worked on the adaptation of Rooney’s 2018 book, Normal People, which was a huge hit when it aired in April 2020.

It was BBC iPlayer’s most-streamed series of the year and made stars of its actors Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar Jones.

Read The Independent’s five-star review of Normal People here.

By the looks of the trailer, Conversations with Friends will have many of the same ingredients as Normal People: fraught dinner table conversations, illicit kissing and dreamy European vistas.