When Dolly Alderton released her memoir in 2018, readers were hooked. Her debut title served up an unflinching account of (just about!) surviving her 20s, which won multiple awards and struck a chord with audiences the world over.
So it’s little wonder news of Alderton’s self-penned TV adaptation Everything I Know About Love also caused quite a stir. The seven-part series is billed as “a semi-fictionalised adaptation”.
Set in 2012, with flashbacks to suburban adolescence in the early noughties, the drama dives into the bad dates, heartaches and humiliations of two house-sharing friends – and yet asks if platonic love can survive romantic love as we grow up.
At the centre of the story are childhood best friends Maggie, played by The Witcher’s Emma Appleton, and Birdy, played by The Morning Show’s Bel Powley; plus university friends Marli Siu as Nell and Aliyah Odoffin as Amara.
“When we first meet Maggie, she’s just finished her university gap year and she’s moved to London,” says Appleton, 30. “She’s embracing adult life in a big city; she’s with her friends and figuring out what that looks like and what direction she wants to go – she’s excited by it.”
In contrast Birdy is quite anxious and nervy, according to Powley, also 30. She adds: “She’s Maggie’s childhood best friend. They’ve known each other since they were 11 years old, so they’re embarking on this journey together, along with their other friends Nell and Amara.
“I’d read the book because my best friend gave me it – so my Maggie, which I thought was a beautiful thing. I was completely obsessed with it. I read it and remember thinking, if this gets turned into a TV show then I want to play Farley, who ended being Birdy.”
With its funny, honest musings on love, friendship and relationships, and growing up as a millennial, the series will feature the raucous nights out, first dates, and awkward sexual encounters detailed by journalist-cum-podcaster-cum-columnist Alderton.
The most heart-warming scenes come with the dancing as the foursome learn a choreographed routine at home before being let loose on the dancefloor.
“The dancing is something that brings all four girls together,” says Odoffin, 22, who makes her on-screen TV debut. “That’s the theme that runs through it till the end, if there’s music and there’s communion, that’s when all four girls are right there together. It’s quite cool that it’s something most female friendships can relate to, that freedom on the dancefloor.”
Everything I Know About Love, BBC1, Tuesday, 10.40pm (11.10pm Northern Ireland)
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