Acclaimed Irish director Lenny Abrahamson, famous for bringing Sally Rooney’s best-selling novel Normal People to television screens (and launching the careers of Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones in the process), is turning his attention to another beloved author, David Nicholls.
Variety has learned that Abrahamson is set to once again direct the TV version of Nichols’ 2024 novel You Are Here for the BBC, which co-produced and aired Normal People and Abrahamson’s sequel Conversations with Friends (based on Rooney’s debut novel).
You Are Here, which Variety reports will begin filming in July, will also reunite Abrahamson with Element Pictures, the leading Irish production company backed by Fremantle, with whom he has worked with throughout his career.
The BBC, Element and Fremantle all declined to comment.
Similar to Nichols’ hit novel “One Day” (which was made into a movie and recently on TV), “You Are Here” is a romance centered around two main characters. But this time the pair, Michael and Marnie, are not in their twenties but middle-aged, lonely divorcees who find themselves brought together on a long walk across the north of England by both devoted mutual friends and highly unpredictable weather. After 10 days and 200 miles, they found exactly what they were looking for.
Along with “One Day,” Nichols has adapted several of his novels into films. “Starter For 10” was made into a film in 2006 starring James McAvoy, and “Us” was once again made into a four-part series on the BBC. Although nothing has been confirmed, it’s likely that Nichols will also be involved in You Are Here, given that he wrote Starter for 10, the film One Day, an episode of the series and the screenplay for Up.
Speaking to the BBC around the time of the book’s release in 2024, he said there had been some discussion about making it into a film, but it was “a difficult one because it’s outdoors in a British climate and a lot of the content is very internal and implicit and we have to find a way to bring that to screen.”
Nichols also worked on the adaptation of Sue Townsend’s classic The Secret Diary of 13 3/4 Year Old Adrian Mole for the BBC.
You Are Here is Abrahamson’s latest work, having worked with Element since his 2004 debut feature Adam & Paul. Since then, it has produced TV’s “Normal People” and “Conversations with Friends,” as well as films such as “Frank” and “Room,” which have earned numerous Oscar nominations, with Brie Larson winning Best Actress. He has recently been filming his latest, untitled film The Element and A24, starring Tom Burke and Eve Hewson and set in Dublin’s Jewish community in the late 1970s.
