NORMAL People viewers have experienced a range of emotions after the show aired full-frontal nudity from both of its stars. It has so far been downloaded more than 23million times and a lot of its first season is taken up with sex, kissing or foreplay. Tonight's episode saw Marianne and Connell - who first hooked up during high school - reconnect in Dublin after they moved away for university. Marianne, who is a lot posher than working class Connell, tries to include him in her circle of friends but he has trouble fitting in. After she gets drunk at a party and says she wants to sleep with him, he refuses but drives her home. The next morning they eventually sleep together in a long sex scene which ends with Connell lying completely naked in bed.

The characters move and breathe as they do in all pages of the book, the story of Marianne Daisy Edgar-Jones and Connell Paul Mescal as captivating on screen as it in Rooney's written word. Even if you didn't know that the Irish writer was an executive producer or co-wrote six episodes — Edgar-Jones described her as "very involved" and "overseeing everything" to Digital Spy and other press — you'd know anyway, because it shows. Normal People is beautiful. It sweeps you up in its arms, capturing the very essence of the book — that all-encompassing love between Marianne and Connell that transcends the physical, the pair fascinated by the way each thinks and how they see the world.

Hiring an intimacy coordinator, for starters. Lenny Abrahamson, who executive produced the series and also directed its first six episodes, admits he was initially hesitant when the idea was floated. How to adapt an unadaptable novel? Of course, when Edgar-Jones and Mescal tried out for the show, both were made aware of what it would entail.