It’s hard to believe that the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People has only been a part of our lives and culture for 60 days. Time really does move differently right now. For those of us still mourning the completion of all twelve episodes of the Irish love (kind of) story, we’ve got good news.
Start emotionally preparing yourself – Normal People is returning! Set 40 years in the future (how very CMBYN sequel of you) the bonus content imagines exactly what Marianne and Connell are up to… in their sixties? Given they haven’t got back together in Sally Rooney’s follow-up short story, The Clinic, they’re probably still sending each other emails and refusing to acknowledge their true destiny while hanging out with their respective grandchildren.
The sketches, rather than full-length episodes, have been made for the 2020 Comic Relief Fundraiser by RTÉ (Normal People‘s TV network in Ireland) and will air on 26 July. “I promise you, these are two very special bits,” said Comic Relief co-founder and romcom screenwriter Richard Curtis during an interview with RTÉ Radio 1. “It’s so much better than anything we’ve ever made.” Better than… Love Actually?
The screenwriter goes on to promise a very special guest star, calling the project “really, really beautiful” and note that he “can’t imagine any other context in which they would have allowed this little sort of extra special guest into the world of Normal People.” Here’s hoping that every celebrity who has shared their obsession with the horny series is sitting around — socially-distanced, naturally — in a County Sligo pub in the opening scene.