Turns out ‘Bridgerton’ no longer has the monopoly on posh people getting hot and heavy in beautifully upholstered rooms. Disney+’s new adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s racy novel ‘Rivals’ is arriving later this year with its own armada of horny toffs, ready to seize the crumpet crown from its Netflix rival.
Then again, there’ll be a whole lot of people out there asking themselves: ‘Jilly who?’. If you’re one of the people who missed that gilded era of literature known as the ‘bonkbuster’, in which novelists like Dame Jilly, Jackie Collins and Shirley Conran shifted millions of copies of their tales of upper-class misbehaviour, often involving sexy Argentinian polo stars and roguish MPs, here’s a brief explainer of them – and this splashy small-screen revival.
1. It’s Dynasty meets Bridgerton
While Jilly Cooper’s books have been adapted before, via 1997 ITV miniseries ‘The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous’, a 1993 TV film of ‘Riders’ and 2009 TV movie ‘Octavia’, a better touchpoint for this eight-part series is probably US telly soaps of the 1980s, ‘Dynasty’ and ‘Dallas’. Rather than corporate conglomerates and oil, here it’s the world of British TV media and its intersection with the UK’s political classes and landed types that backdrops all the scheming and sex. As Fry & Laurie once said, the boardroom and the bedroom are just two sides of the same coin. Rivals is that coin.
2. You can bet on the Tory MP being a cad
Topically, Jilly Cooper’s recurring and rakish antihero, Rupert Campbell-Black, is a Tory MP in ‘Rivals’. Played by Alex Hassell, the character pops up in a few of the author’s Rutshire Chronicles books, including ‘Riders’, and you can clock his winky lothario ways in action at several points in the trailer.
3. The perm is back
This year’s unlikeliest fashion trend? The perm. At least, if ‘Rivals’ achieves the viral status Disney will be hoping for. Before everyone asks their stylist for a ‘Maggie Thatcher’, the series will be putting a contemporary lens on the 1980s trends and sexual politics – so it’s not to be taken at face value. ‘[It’s] offering a raw exploration of a complicated moment in British history when class, race, sex, wealth and sexual liberation meant that, for the very privileged few, there were no limits to what they could achieve,’ reads the synopsis.
4. David Tennant is going full Saltburn
Every overheated miniseries worth its organic salt needs a hissable villain, and here it’s David Tennant’s crooked Lord Baddingham who’ll be taking on the cartoonish villain role. And he’s caddish right down to his tweed britches and sinister slickback hair as the rich TV baron who crosses swords with Campbell-Black. The Timelord-turned-actual-lord seems to be having a ball throwing garden parties, wielding a shotgun and bestriding the boardroom.
5. Aidan Turner can rock a moustache
Behind that bushy ’tache is one-time ‘Hobbit’ star and Irish charisma machine Aidan Turner, swapping ‘Poldark’ for polo as ‘Rivals’ Declan O’Hara. He’s the heartthrob TV presenter Lord Baddingham is banking on to save his failing network.
Set to Robert Palmer’s ’80s libidinous anthem ‘Addicted to Love’, the trailer gives more of a spicy flavour of what to expect than a breakdown of the story beats, but it’s clear that Baddingham will be living up – or rather down – to his name and that it might be left to Danny Dyer’s more wholesome electronics millionaire, Freddie Jones, and his wife Valerie (Lisa McGrillis) to put one over ‘Rivals’ Rutshire snobs.
Jilly Cooper newbie? Here’s everything you need to know about ‘Rivals’.