SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “Rivals,” now streaming on Hulu/Disney+.
British author Jilly Cooper is synonymous with sex. In the U.K., the 87-year-old has long reigned as the queen of “bonkbusters” (a.k.a. romance novels), with titles like “Riders” and “Tackle” usually accompanied by saucy jacket covers (one edition of “Riders” features a woman in tight-fitting horse-riding pants with a man’s hand placed provocatively on her posterior.)
“She’s a writer with a reputation within the United Kingdom,” says Felicity Blunt, Cooper’s longtime literary agent at Curtis Brown (part of UTA). “But I would say you should never judge a book by a cover.”
That much is evident in an expensive and expansive new TV adaptation of one of her most famous books, “Rivals,” which took the U.K. by storm when it was released on Disney+ last month and is now catching on in the U.S., where it’s available on Hulu. While Cooper’s novels are best known for their explicit content (“It’s like a naughty Bridget Jones,” is how Blunt describes “Rivals”), devoted fans turn to her for much more. “She talks about misogyny, sexism, racism, homophobia; that’s been throughout her books from the very, very beginning,” says Blunt. “She was never preaching to you, she was just making you feel uncomfortable, and then you would take away your feelings about it. And I think that is the genius of her writing.”
David Tennant, who plays Lord Tony Baddingham in the show, is among those who was only aware of Cooper via her reputation before reading the scripts for “Rivals.” (It was his wife Georgia who persuaded the actor to take on the role of menacing TV network owner Tony.) “There probably is, or was, a snobbishness towards Jilly’s writing,” Tennant says. “I hope the success of this adaptation has gone some way to redressing that, because actually you can kind of write off a ‘bonkbuster’ — or whatever adjectives you want to apply to these books — that can minimize how successful they are. But clearly Jilly has an understanding of human beings.”
Like many of Cooper’s novels, “Rivals” is set in a fictional village called Rutshire in the English countryside, depicting a cornucopia of couples as they flirt, fight and fornicate. The book was first published in 1988 and, unlike most of its characters, the TV adaptation, from U.K. prodco Happy Prince, is largely faithful. But viewed through what Blunt calls a “2024 lens,” some elements required a deft touch to bring to screen in a post-#MeToo world.
Potentially fraught moments include the show’s central romance, between blossoming 20-year-old Taggie (played by Bella Maclean) and 36-year-old athlete-turned-Government minister Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell channeling a “Pride and Prejudice”-era Colin Firth) and an abusive affair between Tony and one of his employees, TV producer Cameron Cook (played by Nafessa Williams). One particular plot point discussed at length in the writers’ room – which included Blunt, an exec producer on the project and Happy Prince chief creative officer Dominic Treadwell-Collins – was a scene in which Campbell-Black gropes Taggie while she’s catering a fancy dinner party.
L-R: Alex Hassell as Rupert Campbell-Black (courtesy of Disney+), Felicity Blunt (courtesy of Curtis Brown)
“There was never a disagreement amongst any of the EPs that we wanted to [show] it,” says Blunt. “In the writers’ room undoubtedly it was something we really talked about. Because in talking about it, you sort of examine it from every side. What is the repercussion for that character? Are we going to be able to still root for him? We are in 2024, we are not in 1986 — so what is an audience reaction going to be to that?”
The key was to turn the assault — and its aftermath — into a pivotal moment for Campbell-Black, after which he begins to reform. “Any of those physical scenes, whether we’re talking about an act of violence or an act of sex, they can only be justified if they are telling a story,” says Blunt. “Otherwise it’s melodramatic or exploitative.” The production team also got in not one but two intimacy coordinators on the series and ensured that sensitive scenes, such as the groping one, were filmed with as few people in the room as possible.
While some actors may have been cautious about a project like “Rivals” — not least because of the copious nudity — for others it was the nuance of the relationships, both inter- and extra-marital, that made the project interesting. “To be exploring that [moral] ambiguity, that’s what makes it delicious as an actor,” Tennant says. For a start, although Tony is cheating on his wife (played by Claire Rushbrook), the couple still experience “moments of joy” and “huge respect” in their relationship, the actor points out. Then there’s his tempestuous and eventually abusive affair with Cameron. “There is a power dynamic which is questionable,” Tennant says of the characters’ employee-employer relationship, but adds that it’s not straightforward either, and the relationship “alters and it shifts and it ebbs and it flows.”
The explosive season finale, which sees Tony slap Cameron across the face before she eventually bashes him over the head with a gold television award, is one of the few times the series deviates from the book. In Cooper’s version, Tony simply beats Cameron up; the producers changed the narrative to make her fight back and leave Tony bleeding out on the floor. “We didn’t want her to only be a victim in that scene,” Blunt says of the change. “We wanted and needed her to have agency and strength, but you wanted to feel really scared going into that scene.”
From Tennant’s perspective, Tony, who has recently learned that Cameron has been sleeping with Rupert Campbell-Black, feels his anger is “fully justified, and he’s also a bit out of control. And for someone who’s that much of a control freak, that’s never a particularly safe place to be.” Not least for Tony, whose life hangs in the balance as the credits roll.
Whether the TV boss — and the rest of Rutshire’s residents — will return for a second season remains to be seen, although judging from viewers’ reactions in the U.K., hopes are high. The fervent response has taken Tennant somewhat by surprise. “I’ve been very fortunate — it’s happened a handful of times to me when I’ve ended up in something which becomes bigger than it is, and becomes a kind of public conversation about not just the piece of work itself, but about what the repercussions of that might be societally,” says Tennant, who has starred in “Doctor Who” and “Broadchurch.” “And it definitely feels like ‘Rivals’ has broken through in that way. People just seem to be loving it.”
