Normal People is an Irish romantic psychological drama made for television produced by Element Pictures for BBC Three and Hulu in association with Screen Ireland.

The series follows the relationship between Marianne Sheridan (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Connell Waldron (Paul Mescal), as they navigate adulthood from their final days in secondary school to their undergraduate years in Trinity College.

[4] The series follows Marianne Sheridan and Connell Waldron through their time at secondary school in County Sligo on Ireland's Atlantic coast, and later as undergraduate students at Trinity College Dublin.

[5] In May 2019, it was announced that BBC Three and Hulu ordered 12 episodes based on the novel that would premiere 2020 starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal as Marianne and Connell, respectively.

[10] Tubbercurry primarily made up the fictional town of Carricklea, with Streedagh Point along Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way used for beach scenes, Knockmore House in Enniskerry, County Wicklow for the Sheridans' residence, a terraced home in Shankill, Dublin for the Waldrons' residence, and Hartstown Community School in Clonsilla, Fingal, County Dublin for the secondary school scenes featuring real-life students in the background.

Although set in Trieste in the novel, filming took place in Central Italy, primarily in and around Sant'Oreste, Stimigliano, and the villa Il Casale on Tenuta di Verzano, in Lazio.

[20] In June 2020, Abrahamson directed Edgar-Jones and Mescal in a one-off spoof short episode as part of RTÉ Does Comic Relief, in which Marianne and Connell give confessions to a priest played by Andrew Scott.

The site's critic consensus states, "Anchored by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal's vulnerable performances, Normal People is at once intimate and illuminating, beautifully translating the nuances of its source material.

[24] Caroline Framke of Variety magazine wrote: "With its trifecta of elegant writing, directing, and acting, Hulu's Normal People is just as bleak and uncompromising as Rooney's novel—a feat, and one that takes several episodes to fully absorb.

... As Marianne and Connell's relationship grows deeper, Normal People becomes as immersive as the book that inspired it, making you both crave and dread knowing—or perhaps more accurately, experiencing—what happens next.

"[31] The Irish Independent noted that the series glosses over references to The Communist Manifesto and Doris Lessing's feminist novel The Golden Notebook, which Rooney, who has described herself as a Marxist, included in the book.