Inside Jilly Cooper’s raunchy show Rivals packed with nudity and sex scenes including Emily Atack’s nude tennis match
PACKED with nudity, swearing and sex scenes, Jilly Cooper’s Rivals may have started out as a racy novel — but I can confirm it has been reborn as an even steamier TV show.
Set in the Eighties, it unashamedly reflects the hedonism of the time — when making love, and money, were seen as the peak of ambition for the era’s jet set.
One of the sauciest moments of the cheeky eight-parter, which centres on the ruthless world of independent TV in 1986, features Emily Atack — better known as Charlotte in The Inbetweeners — playing naked tennis as saucy Sarah Stratton.
She’s married to the Deputy Prime Minister Paul Stratton, but is also having a good knockabout with central character, Tory MP Rupert Campbell-Black, played by Alex Hassell.
Though he’s naked too, when visitors turn up at his mansion, he doesn’t cover up like Sarah.
Instead, he stands there proudly holding his racket and demands to know: “Who the f* are you and why are you here?”
Just as in the original bonkbuster book, the tangled web of infighting, backstabbing and bedhopping is spun around dishy Rupert, who lives in the appropriately titled fictional Cotswolds county of Rutshire.
Legions of women want to seduce him, including three female characters Maud, Caitlin and Lizzie, who are all heard lusting after him.
Maud says: “The only thing that persuaded Caitlin to leave all her friends in London was the thought of living opposite Rupert Campbell-Black.”
Caitlin confirms: “I want him to ravish me. I’m off to boarding school, I want first crack at him.”
Lizzie sighs: “I’m one of the few women around here who hasn’t been ravished by Rupert.”
But he is not the only figure stripping off in the cheeky series, which drops next month on Disney+ with an all-star cast.
Later in the show, we see another pin-up, Aidan Turner, showing off his buff torso, just as he did in period drama Poldark, the hit TV series that made him a star.
At 41, the Irish actor isn’t looking quite as lean or smooth as when he posed for the famous scything shot on the BBC show almost a decade ago, but he is guaranteed to get quite a few viewers reaching for their fans.
Particularly in another scene where Aidan, sporting a thick moustache, is seen starkers in the bath with smoke rising into the air as he seductively draws on a cigarette.
He plays TV host Declan O’Hara, who interviews the deputy PM and brings up his relationship with wife Sarah.
Expletives galore
Starkly, O’Hara tells him: “She says you have the girth and stamina to compete with any championship racehorse.”
They are just a few standout moments in a show which, in its first episode alone, features eight naked men, six boob shots and seven bum flashes.
And, as such a storyline requires, 28 expletives litter the script.
Rivals certainly hits the ground running too.
Just seconds in, we’re confronted with Rupert and a female journalist called Beattie joining the mile-high club.
He has the woman, played by Annabel Scholey, pinned against the wall of a plane toilet, her red high heels jammed against a towel rail and her head banging on the mirror.
She has to use one hand to keep the door shut while a member of cabin crew bangs on it loudly, fully aware of what’s going on inside.
Even as Rupert finishes one sex session, he’s returning to his seat on the plane, winking at other women who look keen to eat him alive.
All this to the sound of Robert Palmer’s anthem, Addicted To Love.
The soundtrack is just one element of a show that revels in its Eighties timeframe as giant perms compete with even bigger shoulder pads, not to mention some seriously bling watches and sports cars.
The story is fuelled by the competition between Rupert and ambitious TV station controller Lord Tony Baddingham, played by David Tennant, who is also Declan’s boss.
Cesspit of hatred
The trio have a complicated relationship, and it’s not immediately apparent why such a cesspit of hatred is bubbling between them.
Things are just as fraught among their various friends and neighbours, who are later all seen bonking — separately — in a long montage to the sound of Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough.
The filthy-rich residents of Rutshire — including Danny Dyer as tech tycoon Freddie Jones — love nothing more than a wild party, but rarely show affection to their other halves. In one scene, Maud sums up the rural toffs best, saying they are “all horses and dogs and houses and cars and who’s got the longest f*ing driveway”.
She adds: “The men are all desperate to ride anything as long as they’re not married to it and the wives, Jesus, they haven’t had an orgasm since pony club camp.”
The bedhopping and skullduggery is used by Lord Baddingham to get his own back on his arch rival Rupert, exposing his fling with Sarah at a soiree.
The two men square up, but Rupert reveals that far from having his political career ruined by the affair with the Deputy PM’s wife, he has been promoted to Minister for Sport.
Rupert walks off, telling the squire: “You’ll have to try harder if you want to beat me, Lord Baddingham.”
As the door closes behind him, Lord Baddingham puffs on his cigar and says: “Game on”.
- Rivals is available to stream on Disney+ from October 18.
Jilly joy at telly version
IN the Eighties, the British bonkbuster market was dominated by one woman.
Jilly Cooper was queen of the racy novel, selling more than 11million books in the UK alone.
And no stories were raunchier than the 11 she wrote as part of the Rutshire Chronicles from 1986 to 2023.
Rivals is the second in the collection.
The first, Riders, was made into a TV series in 1993 seven years after she wrote it.
Then, in 1997, her fourth in the series, The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, was also adapted for telly.
But neither was considered to be a quality drama.
Now, at 87, Dame Jilly is thrilled to see another of her Eighties works rebooted on our screens.
Disney has sunk millions of pounds into the production, with some seriously sexy stars in the line-up.
Die-hard fans of the books will be relieved to know there’s just as much sauce, even if it comes with a modern twist.
The man who adapted Rivals for TV, former EastEnders boss Dominic Treadwell-Collins, said: “We’ve been equal opportunities in our nudity – there’s a willy for every pair of t*ts.”
WHO’S WHO IN STEAMY NEW SERIES
RUPERT
“SEX god” Campbell-Black is an ex-Olympic showjumper turned Tory MP played by Alex Hassell.
Enjoys rolling in the hay with his mistress Sarah.
LORD TONY
HIS arch rival is the highly ambitious Lord Tony Baddingham, boss of Corinium Television, who is played by former Doctor Who star David Tennant.
SARAH
RUPERT’S lover is Sarah Stratton, played by Emily Atack.
Steamy scenes include naked tennis – and she happens to be married to the Deputy Prime Minister
PAUL
RUFUS JONES takes the role of Deputy PM Paul Stratton, who first met his wife Sarah when he was already married and they started an affair.
MAUD
FORMER actress and socialite Maud O’Hara, played by Victoria Smurfit, is the “fickle wife” of Declan.
You might recall her as Orla in Ballykissangel.
DECLAN
TV chat show host Declan O’Hara, played by Aidan Turner, comes to hate his new boss Lord Baddingham.
Declan is also father to Taggie.
FREDDIE
DANNY DYER features as tech tycoon Freddie Jones, a working-class bloke done good who has more than a whiff of Lord Sugar about him.
TAGGIE
CAPTURING the heart of Rupert rather than being lined up for a casual bonk is Bella Maclean as Taggie.
The lothario admits she has him “a little stuck”.