If that doesn’t just involve sticking all the lead characters in government, it’s likely to mean a slight dialling back on the book’s very 1980s sexual politics. The book was first published in 1988, but Disney is promising to give it a contemporary skew in its eight-part adaptation. Photograph: Simon & Schuster Jilly Cooper’s ‘Rivals’ was first published in 1988 It’s set in the ‘ruthless world of independent television in 1986’, with two powerful men – the rakish ex-Olympic rider and Tory MP Rupert Campbell-Black and his ambitious TV station controller Lord Tony Baddingham – vying for control over that station, Corinium Television. Part of Jilly Cooper’s racy 10-book ‘Rutshire Chronicles’ series – named after the fictional county in which its set – ‘Rivals’ follows members of England’s ruling elite as they fall in and out of bed with each other and claw each other’s eyes out to get ahead. And it’s richly cast, too, with David Tennant, Emily Atack, ‘Poldark’s Aidan Turner and Danny Dyer all appearing. The internet’s interest has definitely been piqued, then, by news that Cooper’s bestseller ‘Rivals’ is coming to our telly screens in a new Disney+ series. Like hot Bovril or red phone boxes, they feel like they belong to a bygone era of British life: somehow both more innocent and more problematic all at the same time. Dubbed ‘bonkbusters’, the English novelist’s ripe, pre-’50 Shades of Grey’ tales full of powerful executives, horny polo players and sexy showjumpers questing after other men’s wives and businesses, they often leaned heavily into the dual meaning of the word ‘stud’.

Mount!, the latest instalment of the series, published on Thursday (8th September).Anyone alive and of reading age in the ’80s will have come across a Jilly Cooper novel.

The nine novels selected for adaptation, published by Transworld between 1985 and 2011, are: Riders, Rivals, Polo, The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, Appassionata, Score!, Pandora, Wicked! and Jump!Ĭooper's inspirations behind the series' leading man, Rupert Campbell-Black, was revealed during the launch for Mount! on Wednesday (7th September) as Andrew Parker Bowles, the Earl of Suffolk Michael Howard and Rupert Lycett Green.

Kate Brooke, who was screenwriter also for ITV's 'Mr Selfridge', will adapt the books, according to the Daily Mail. It is currently also working on adapting AA Dhand’s Bradford-based 'gritty' crime series Streets of Darkness, as reported in April. Jilly Cooper's bestselling Rutshire Chronicles novels are to be adapted for the small screen in a new 'high-end drama' series for ITV, called 'Riders'.įilm rights for nine of the series' 10 books, about life and romance among the equestrian set, were acquired by UK production company FilmWave, whose credits include JK Rowling's 'The Casual Vacancy' for the BBC and HBO.

Riders jilly cooper series