Alison Oliver

Cork actress Alison Oliver is superb as the introverted Frances, but we do want a bit more from the latest Sally Rooney adaptation.

Bobbi is bold, unfiltered, American and a small bit of a pain in the hole. With the chats about Communism and the PG text messages, I’m not holding out much hope, and I don’t really care about the other two characters. To be fair, it was always going to be trickier to transfer that inner intimate world of Book Frances to Screen Frances, and Cork actress Alison Oliver does a magnificent job of conveying a multitude with no more than a slight widening of her mascara-free eyes. I say 'hit', more like it delicately brushes up against the small screen with a meaningful sigh. Much like the rest of the human race, I was on the Normal People fan bus. You can't say that, though, because you are a GOOD MOTHER and you adored Normal People and you want to like this too.

The adaptation of Sally Rooney's debut novel has been slammed for being slow compared to Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones' raunchy scenes in the TV version of ...

Lenny said: “He is amazing. I have to say I really admire him greatly as an actor.” “And when he is on set, he is really working.

Sublimely sensitive and subdued, the adaptation of Sally Rooney's novel on Amazon Prime Video delivers.

You could ask: Do Melissa and Nick annex Bobbi and Frances or is it the other way around? Without the interiority of the novel much depends here on Alison Oliver as Frances to deliver a novel’s worth of dramatic complexity in her bearing, her face, her eyes, glances and physical reactions. The series is gorgeously made, sensitive to the Dublin setting in an unusual way, aware of the texture of the place, away from what the tourists gaze at. The evolution of that affair is the story of the series (12 half-hour episodes) and it is so, so slow burning that the delicacy of it is exquisite. One knows that because she’s been called the “first great millennial novelist,” been dismissed as a writer of souped-up, morbid romance, and there was a major fuss two years ago about the TV adaptation of her novel Normal People. Admired or disparaged, her material matters. Then swept along by its rhythm and the emotional tumult of Frances’s life in Dublin, I came to its final shattering words: “Come and get me.” No one who has read it can forget the shock of that.

There are few things that will launch a career quite like taking part in a Sally Rooney adaptation. You'll be watched by millions of horny onlookers which, ...

In March 2022, it was announced by The Hollywood Reporter that Oliver would star in a four-part drama from the BBC shedding light on the inequities faced by people with disabilities. And just like us, Oliver has admired Rooney's writing since its debut. Call it the luck of the Irish, but Oliver had not been a day out of drama school before she landed the role of Frances. I meant this quite literally. While for the most part Alison Oliver is an enigma, preferring to keep her private life just that, we do have some globs of information to offer. And what can we expect from the actor in the future? I mean, she's in a love quadrangle with Sasha Lane, Jemima Kirke and Joe Alwyn? Can you blame us?

Sasha Lane and Alison Oliver in Conversations with Friends on RTÉ One: painstaking naturalism allows for sly commentary on class and culture. Picture: Hulu.

While their bond allows them to share innermost feelings, ... A gorgeous, smart but self-conscious young woman from down the country, studying at Trinity College Dublin, falls in love with a good-looking young man whose perfect jawline sits just below an equally active mind and above a guarded heart. Sally Rooney’s debut novel comes to the small screen, while Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan bring us a high-spirited homage to Asian cinema

The highly anticipated TV adaptation of Sally Rooney's debut novel Conversations with Friends is coming to RTÉ this week - director Lenny Abrahamson talks ...

Conversations with Friends premieres on RTÉ One on Wednesday, May at 9.35 pm. The script comes from Mark O'Halloran, reuniting with the director after their earlier collaborations on Adam & Paul, Garage and RTÉ series Prosperity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.