‘Normal People’: Canada’s CBC Gem Buys Hulu & BBC Coming-Of-Age Drama

Canada’s CBC has picked up buzzy Hulu and BBC drama Normal People.

The Canadian public broadcaster will air the coming-of-age drama, based on Sally Rooney’s best-selling novel on its streaming service from May 27.

Two episodes of the Hulu and BBC co-production, which stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal, will air weekly.

This comes as the 12-part series, featuring half-hour episodes, propelled British streaming network BBC Three to its best-ever week when it launched last month, generating 12.6M views in its first week.

Produced by Ireland’s Element Pictures, Normal People tracks the complicated relationship of Marianne (Edgar-Jones) and Connell (Mescal) from the end of their school days in a small-town west of Ireland to their undergraduate years at Trinity College. At school, he’s well-liked and popular, while she’s lonely, proud and intimidating. But when Connell comes to pick up his mother from her cleaning job at Marianne’s house, an indelible connection grows between them – one they are determined to conceal. A year later, they’re both studying in Dublin and Marianne has found her feet in a new social world but Connell hangs at the side lines, shy and uncertain. The pair weaves in and out of each other’s lives as they explore the complicated worlds of intimacy and young love.

It is adapted by Rooney and writers Alice Birch and Mark O’Rowe, it is directed by Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald. The series is executive produced by Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Emma Norton Anna Ferguson, Rooney and Abrahamson. Endeavor Content is handling international sales.