This spicy, self-aware riot, based on the popular Jilly Cooper novel, seems to know what it’s doing. It’s rather good at it, too
Whatever about the preposterous set-up, the terrible costumes and the over-egged orgasm montage at the end of episode one (more on that shortly), this spicy, self-aware riot, based on the popular Jilly Cooper novel, seems to know what it’s doing. It’s rather good at it, too.
Rivals – Trailer
Even the opening scene, which depicts a noisy, theatrical bonk in the toilet of a speeding Concorde, is executed with such startling conviction that you’d be almost — almost — tempted to applaud at the climax.
No cliché is spared. The accompanying song (Robert Palmer’s Addicted to Love) is perfect. The dialogue (“This is your captain speaking…we’re about to go supersonic”) is spot-on.
The surrounding clouds, shaped like a woman’s legs, appear to be in on the act. Job done, Champagne popped, Alex Hassell’s Rupert Campbell-Black finally emerges from the loo with a cheeky grin on his face.
Emily Atack and Alex Hassell in a scene from Rivals. Photo: Disney+
“Did we break the sound barrier?” he asks the flight attendant. Goodnight and good luck, for the golden age of television has finally peaked.
If we can be serious for a moment, Rivals is trash, but it’s enjoyable trash, the kind that looks as if it was designed with one thing in mind, and that is to get viewers talking. Excite them first, tell a story later. Begin with a bare backside (Hassell’s, obviously), then move on to the plot. Fair enough.
Everyone here is in on the joke, and everyone is decent in it. In Rivals land, the sun is always shining, the soundtrack keeps on giving (ZZ Top and Wham! follow Palmer) and our own Aidan Turner, a fine actor who knows a thing or two about what happens when his shirt falls off on television, looks to be enjoying himself.
We begin in 1986, and a filthy rich television magnate (David Tennant’s Lord Tony Baddingham) has finally acquired the talents of one Declan O’Hara (Turner), TV’s most controversial interviewer.
The moustachioed Irish troublemaker fancies himself as a deadly serious broadcaster and he’s used to grilling political heavyweights for a pre-recorded segment.
O’Hara ditched the BBC for the Corinium Television network because his new boss promised him full control, better pay and a live slot. He isn’t best pleased, then, to discover that the person who’ll be calling the shots is, in fact, a brilliant female producer from New York named Cameron Cook (Nafessa Williams). And she wants to turn O’Hara into a late-night talk show host.
David Tennant stars as filthy rich television magnate Lord Tony Baddingham. Photo: Disney+
Meanwhile, Declan and his actress wife Maud (Victoria Smurfit) and their two grown-up children, Taggie (Bella Maclean) and Caitlin (Catriona Chandler) are slowly settling into their new home in the Rutshire countryside.
The neighbours are an interesting bunch. Baddingham, of course, lives just up the road, and is the sort of man who usually arrives home in a helicopter.
Lizzie Vereker (Katherine Parkinson), a popular novelist who hasn’t written a word in years, is just across the field.
And then there’s the Campbell-Black chap, a womanising showjumper-turned-politician who hates Baddingham (that’s the rivalry bit explained) and will eventually conspire with others to steal his network
And then there’s the Campbell-Black chap, a womanising showjumper-turned-politician who hates Baddingham (that’s the rivalry bit explained) and will eventually conspire with others to steal his network.
To do that, he’ll need help — he might also need to press pause on the controversial love affairs. But hey, with every good scheme comes an unfortunate complication, and it looks like Campbell-Black has his eye on Taggie. Erotic chaos ensues.
Katherine Parkinson stars as Lizzie Vereker, a popular novelist who hasn’t written a word in years. Photo: Disney+
Indeed, Cooper’s tale is overflowing with beautiful, backstabbing eejits, some of them more redeemable than others.
It’s a world that most of us will never recognise — and we’re not supposed to, for Rivals is a fantasy, a cartoon, a boisterous melodrama about horrible posh people portrayed by award-winning primetime performers and renowned daytime soap opera actors.
Funny, salty and relentlessly camp, Rivals adopts a more-is-more approach to television storytelling, which means there is always something happening.
Another screaming match, another shocking revelation, another tasty twist, another roll in the sack — it never shuts up.
Alex Hassell as Rupert Campbell-Black. Photo: Disney+
The important thing to remember about Rivals is that, really, it’s about sex. Who’s having it, who isn’t having it, who probably shouldn’t be having it, etc,. etc. There is nudity around every corner, sometimes on a tennis court (our pal Rupert really should be careful with his racket), sometimes behind closed doors.
Is it about time we return to the aforementioned montage? It is. Let’s just say that, by the end of episode one, everyone is shown to be having a whale of a time. It’s here that David Tennant and Danny Dyer (yes, that Danny Dyer) show us what they’re made of.
There are some things you expect to see in this sort of show — Tennant, for instance, chomping on cigars, dishing out orders and chewing up every ounce of scenery in his path. And then there are things you do not forget in a hurry, such as Dyer, in a god-awful wig, pleasuring himself to the strains of Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough.
Buckle up, viewers: we’re in for a bumpy ride.
Rivals premieres on Disney+ on Friday, October 18
