\tSPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for \u201cRivals,\u201d now streaming on Hulu\/Disney+.<\/p>\n
\tBritish author Jilly Cooper is synonymous with sex. In the U.K., the 87-year-old has long reigned as the queen of \u201cbonkbusters\u201d (a.k.a. romance novels), with titles like \u201cRiders\u201d and \u201cTackle\u201d usually accompanied by saucy jacket covers (one edition of \u201cRiders\u201d features a woman in tight-fitting horse-riding pants with a man\u2019s hand placed provocatively on her posterior.)<\/p>\n
\t\u201cShe\u2019s a writer with a reputation within the United Kingdom,\u201d says Felicity Blunt, Cooper\u2019s longtime literary agent at Curtis Brown (part of UTA). \u201cBut I would say you should never judge a book by a cover.\u201d \t<\/p>\n
\tThat much is evident in an expensive and expansive new TV adaptation of one of her most famous books, \u201cRivals,\u201d 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\u2019s available on Hulu. While Cooper\u2019s novels are best known for their explicit content (\u201cIt\u2019s like a naughty Bridget Jones,\u201d is how Blunt describes \u201cRivals\u201d), devoted fans turn to her for much more. \u201cShe talks about misogyny, sexism, racism, homophobia; that\u2019s been throughout her books from the very, very beginning,\u201d says Blunt. \u201cShe 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.\u201d <\/p>\n
\t\t\t \t\t\tPopular on Variety\t\t \t \t\t \t \tDavid 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 \u201cRivals.\u201d (It was his wife Georgia who persuaded the actor to take on the role of menacing TV network owner Tony.) \u201cThere probably is, or was, a snobbishness towards Jilly\u2019s writing,\u201d Tennant says. \u201cI hope the success of this adaptation has gone some way to redressing that, because actually you can kind of write off a \u2018bonkbuster\u2019 \u2014 or whatever adjectives you want to apply to these books \u2014 that can minimize how successful they are. But clearly Jilly has an understanding of human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tLike many of Cooper\u2019s novels, \u201cRivals\u201d 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 \u201c2024 lens,\u201d some elements required a deft touch to bring to screen in a post-#MeToo world. \t<\/p>\n
\tPotentially fraught moments include the show\u2019s 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 \u201cPride and Prejudice\u201d-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\u2019 room \u2013 which included Blunt, an exec producer on the project and Happy Prince chief creative officer Dominic Treadwell-Collins \u2013 was a scene in which Campbell-Black gropes Taggie while she\u2019s catering a fancy dinner party.<\/p>\n
\t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t \t\t\t\t\tL-R: Alex Hassell as Rupert Campbell-Black (courtesy of Disney+), Felicity Blunt (courtesy of Curtis Brown) \t\t\t\t \t \t\t\t \t\u201cThere was never a disagreement amongst any of the EPs that we wanted to [show] it,\u201d says Blunt. \u201cIn the writers\u2019 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 \u2014 so what is an audience reaction going to be to that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe key was to turn the assault \u2014 and its aftermath \u2014 into a pivotal moment for Campbell-Black, after which he begins to reform. \u201cAny of those physical scenes, whether we\u2019re talking about an act of violence or an act of sex, they can only be justified if they are telling a story,\u201d says Blunt. \u201cOtherwise it\u2019s melodramatic or exploitative.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
\tWhile some actors may have been cautious about a project like \u201cRivals\u201d \u2014 not least because of the copious nudity \u2014 for others it was the nuance of the relationships, both inter- and extra-marital, that made the project interesting. \u201cTo be exploring that [moral] ambiguity, that\u2019s what makes it delicious as an actor,\u201d Tennant says. For a start, although Tony is cheating on his wife (played by Claire Rushbrook), the couple still experience \u201cmoments of joy\u201d and \u201chuge respect\u201d in their relationship, the actor points out. Then there\u2019s his tempestuous and eventually abusive affair with Cameron. \u201cThere is a power dynamic which is questionable,\u201d Tennant says of the characters\u2019 employee-employer relationship, but adds that it\u2019s not straightforward either, and the relationship \u201calters and it shifts and it ebbs and it flows.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe 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\u2019s version, Tony simply beats Cameron up; the producers changed the narrative to make her fight back and leave Tony bleeding out on the floor. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want her to only be a victim in that scene,\u201d Blunt says of the change. \u201cWe wanted and needed her to have agency and strength, but you wanted to feel really scared going into that scene.\u201d \t<\/p>\n
\tFrom Tennant\u2019s perspective, Tony, who has recently learned that Cameron has been sleeping with Rupert Campbell-Black, feels his anger is \u201cfully justified, and he\u2019s also a bit out of control. And for someone who\u2019s that much of a control freak, that\u2019s never a particularly safe place to be.\u201d Not least for Tony, whose life hangs in the balance as the credits roll.<\/p>\n
\tWhether the TV boss \u2014 and the rest of Rutshire\u2019s residents \u2014 will return for a second season remains to be seen, although judging from viewers\u2019 reactions in the U.K., hopes are high. The fervent response has taken Tennant somewhat by surprise. \u201cI\u2019ve been very fortunate \u2014 it\u2019s happened a handful of times to me when I\u2019ve 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,\u201d says Tennant, who has starred in \u201cDoctor Who\u201d and \u201cBroadchurch.\u201d \u201cAnd it definitely feels like \u2018Rivals\u2019 has broken through in that way. People just seem to be loving it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for \u201cRivals,\u201d 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 \u201cbonkbusters\u201d (a.k.a. romance novels), with titles like \u201cRiders\u201d and \u201cTackle\u201d usually accompanied by saucy jacket covers (one edition of \u201cRiders\u201d features a woman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}