AFFA 2014 fellow for playwriting, Alice Birch has received huge plaudits for her involvement writing the screenplay for TV drama ‘Normal People’ along with the author of this best selling novel, Sally Rooney.
When asked by BBC Media about what challenges she faced while involved in the project, Alice replied, ‘Structurally, making the book fit into 12 episodes that feel compelling and like their own little story, but also work across the whole, was obviously difficult because that’s not how Sally conceived it. The interiority of each character – that internal monologue / world is always difficult to translate to screen. Lots of missed communication or misunderstandings happen in the novel and that’s hard on screen without being expositional’.
A short interview with Alice Birch about the process of writing the screenplay can be found here. Normal People is available for viewing on iplayer.