Jilly Cooper’s daft bonk-fest Rivals lands a huge Rotten Tomatoes score-Ruth Lawes-Entertainment – Metro

Rivals isn’t far off a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes’ review aggregator the Tomatometer (Picture: Sanne Gault/Disney)

Dame Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster Rivals has been given an impressive Rotten Tomatoes score days before it is released on Disney Plus.

Set in the 1980s, the drama follows Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) and Rupert Campbell-Black’s (Alex Hassell) rivalry that begins to affect the day-to-day operations of a major TV network.

Starring an ensemble cast including Emily Atack, Aidan Turner and Danny Dyer, Rivals also follows the romantic entanglements among Britain’s social elite and workplace relations.

Ahead of the show’s premiere on Disney Plus on Friday, it has been awarded 90% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes’ famous Tomatometer from 10 critics.

In The Times, Carol Midgley told viewers to prepare to ‘buckle up’ for a ‘daft but highly entertaining watch.’

Nick Curtis for the Evening Standard wrote: ‘Rivals is gloriously trashy and arch, the epitome of guilty-pleasure TV, everyone smoking and smirking in between the schtupping.’

The show has been called ‘daft’ but ‘highly entertaining’ by critics (Picture: Disney/Robert Viglasky. All Rights Reserved)

In The Guardian, Stuart Heritage said: ‘We are living through an age of especially dour television… In this context, Rivals feels like nothing less than an explosion. We should all be extremely glad it’s here.’

Emily, who plays Sarah Stratton, previously spoke to Metro about her experience of filming nude scenes on Rivals, which she described as ‘liberating.’

The Inbetweeners star said: ‘Sometimes you do become so relaxed that you are just sometimes sitting there with your knockers out, and you go, “Oh, right, okay, God, I’ve forgotten to put my robe on.”

Emily attributes her comfort on Rivals to her ‘amazing’ crew, director, co-stars and intimacy co-ordinators. Morale was so high and bonds tightly formed that they would give each other a pat on the back after filming intimate scenes.

Rivals follows the various romantic entanglements among the British country elite (Picture: Sanne Gault)

It also explores the cut-throat world of the 1980s TV industry (Picture: Disney)

‘We all spoke about our nudity scenes and all spoke to each other and after we’d all done a nudity scene we’d all give each other a hug,’ she explained.

However, Emily admitted she did have some pre-filming jitters but had consented to the nudity in Rivals- and was fully aware of what she had signed up for.

She said: ‘It’s scary when you have to do something like that, for sure. But I just think: I’m exactly where I need to be and I’m behaving as I should.

‘This is a role that I’ve been cast in. It’s a scene that I signed a contract for that I said I was comfortable with.’

Rivals showrunners said it featured ‘a willy for every pair of tits’ (Picture: Robert Viglasky/© 2023 Disney. All Rights Reserved)

Rivals showrunner Dominic Treadwell-Collins previously promised that Rivals would be full of the kind of sex scenes typical of the book – and the gender balance will ensure ‘a willy for every pair of tits.’

‘We’ve been equal opportunities in our nudity,’ Dominic told The Times in an interview. ‘There’s a willy for every pair of tits.’

Rivals is the second book of Dame Jilly’s Rutshire Chronicles, which started with Riders in 1986, and now consists of 11 novels in total.

The most recent of which, Tackle!, was published in 2023, after 2016’s Mount!, 2010’s Jump!, 2006’s Wicked!, and 2002’s Pandora, which was the first in the series to be released in the 21st century.

In the 1990s, the novels Score!, Appassionata, and The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, and Polo continued the series after Rivals and Riders were published in the 1980s.

Rivals is available to stream on Disney Plus from Friday.

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