Streaming on: Disney+
Episodes viewed: 4 of 8
Rivals begins with a climax. Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) is bonking in the toilet of a Concorde that goes supersonic just as he orgasms. A champagne bottle pops and all the passengers cheer as they eat prawn cocktails and chain-smoke to the sound of Robert Palmer’s ‘Addicted To Love’. In case it wasn’t yet clear, it’s the 1980s, and everyone’s horny as hell. But in this adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s novel, there’s tension of another kind too, courtesy of that titular feud: a silly yet dangerous rivalry between two posturing men with too much money at their disposal.
Cooper’s hugely successful Rutshire Chronicles were addictive and scandalous in equal measure for multiple generations of women and queer men, who found a riveting escape in her stories of romance and betrayal. Thankfully, none of that absurdity has been lost in translation, thanks to showrunner Dominic Treadwell-Collins, who’s learned more than just a thing or two about soapy melodramatics following years spent working on EastEnders.
It’s explosive — in more ways than one.
Calling back to the ’80s, when primetime soaps like Dallas and Dynasty were the most popular thing on telly, Rivals channels the best of the genre in all its excess. While a little more depth would be welcome when it comes to the heavier topics, the show rarely loses sight of modern-day audience expectations.
There seems to be a lavish budget to match the hoity-toity men and women who attend the endless boozy parties depicted — one party hostess even rides into her own shindig on a camel — and the cast, a veritable who’s-who of British talent, couldn’t have come cheap either. Everyone involved knows exactly what kind of show this is, David Tennant, Aidan Turner and Katherine Parkinson especially. There is a streak of self-awareness running throughout this show — in fact, a series which seems to arrive fully formed, knowing exactly what it’s supposed to be from the get-go: a hedonistic riot. It’s explosive — in more ways than one.