Welcome to Life and Art from FT Weekend.I'm Lila Raptopoulos, and this is our Friday chat show.Today we are talking about Rivals, the new television adaptation of the 1988 romance novel by Dame Jilly Cooper.
Jilly Cooper is the prolific English writer known for writing, and I quote, bonk busters.In other words, sex-fueled, plot-heavy melodramas.The plot of Rivals centers on a local TV station that needs ratings to stay alive.
It's set in the 1980s in the Cotswolds in the English countryside.And it's about the rivalry between two men, power-hungry TV executive Lord Tony Battingham and local womanizer and general cad, Rupert Campbell Black.
Things get complicated when an Irish journalist is brought in to help out with the ratings, and Rupert starts to fall in love with one of his daughters.This show is an 80s English society fever dream.
There are garden parties, pheasant shoots, and countless extramarital affairs.Welcome to the Cotswolds.
I didn't ask to come here.They're all horses and dogs and houses and cars and the wives.
They haven't had an orgasm since Pony Club Camp.
The show is on Disney Plus and Hulu.It's gotten rave reviews across UK publications.And wherever in the world you live, you will have questions.So let's get into it.
I'm Lila in New York, and I just stumbled on two of my posh neighbors playing naked tennis. Joining me from London, it's Rutscher's local ladies' man.The men want to be him.The women want to be with him.It's not Rupert Campbell Black.
It is executive editor and FT columnist Robert Trinsley.Hi, Robert.Welcome.
Exactly as billed. You captured me entirely.
I thought I really got you there.I really felt good about that.Also in London, she's wearing a puffball skirt and shoulder pads and has a beautiful new boutique in town.It's FT Weekend Magazine's food and drink editor and actual Cotswolds resident.
The great Harriet Fitch Little.Hi, Harriet.Welcome.
Hi, Lila.So good to have you.I had a good one for you.I was thinking you could be she's got dirt on both of her guests and she's definitely going to use it in the second half of the episode.
Just wait.Thank you for bringing one.That's really fun.No one's ever done that. OK, so first top line, where are you both coming to this from and what did you think of the show?Why don't we start there?Robert, you wrote a column about this.
You didn't leave much on the table.You had a strong view.Let's start with you.What did you think?
Well, I've got to say, I did not like this show.I got incredibly bored within about 20 minutes.I mean, this show has had the most amazing reviews.Lots and lots of smart people whose opinions I generally buy into love this show.
And I was quite looking forward to this as sort of, you know, this is going to be some high quality trash, which, you know, jolly, and I'm up for that.You know, the nights are drawing in, it's getting gloomy, so this could be a bit of a laugh.
But I just found it unutterably boring. incredibly joyless.For the amount of sex that was there, it was one of the least sexy shows I've ever seen.
These people all live in these most miserable marriages, engaging in absolutely joyless sex, and one occasion actually watching the television while it's going on.And the characters are so cardboard, you know, they aspire to one dimensionality.
It's like watching an hour long episode of Little Britain where there's this one gag and it just goes on for an hour.And I found myself wandering to my phone really, really quickly.Terribly disappointed.
Well, on the first episode, I would actually agree because, you know, you've got these, like Robert said, just incredibly unsexy sex scenes that is just like pantomime sex.You know, there's nothing sexual about it. Right.
You must have been to better pantomimes.
It's really quite literally bonk, bonk, bonk.Like I had to explain what bonking was to my partner.And I was like, this show is a quite literal definition.
I know.Side note, I feel like there is some there is just so much in here that I think as an American, I would struggle to understand.Like, I don't know if Americans say bonk.I don't know.
Obviously, like Rutscher, where the whole thing is based is a play on the word to rut.I don't know if Americans say that, you know, it feels like a very right.OK, well, that's that's a pun.
But I would say Watch the first episodes that I got through and now I'm on to episode 7 because I just think it's a really good show.I think it's...
really well made, I think the casting is incredible, there are some really sort of subtle and interesting characters and relationships develop in interesting ways, there are like a couple of people who sort of present some humanity throughout all of it that you can latch onto to sort of enjoy the cartoonishness like from their vantage point.
I'm just really enjoying it in a sort of non-ironic way which I did not think would be the case.
Yeah, that's interesting.I felt pretty kind of similar.I mean, first of all, I can't believe that I'm discussing a show whose theme song is mostly moaning with the man who hired me at the Financial Times originally.I kind of agree.
When I went in, though, it was different.I really knew nothing.I didn't know who Jilly Cooper was.I didn't know what a bonkbuster was.None of the actors looked very familiar to me.
And it felt in the beginning, as it was starting, like kind of an 80s Bridgerton. Like a little old-fashioned about society in the way that these shows are.
And then I kept watching sort of for the outfits and the blue eyeshadow and the egg sandwiches and these funny sex scenes and it became kind of a riot.
And then I kept watching because I started to think like, does this say something about Englishness that I should know?And because there were so many terrible characters and then a few that
you know, had a heart, and that seems sort of interesting to me.So yeah, it's grown on me too.I ended up watching six episodes.
I mean, did you not feel... So I watched two episodes, gave up, and then you told me I had to watch another one if I was going to discuss it.And episode three is almost like the script.
Hang on, you know, we haven't actually given any of these characters any personality.We ought to give them a story.And so episode three is where they start attempting to, I mean, I use the word in its loosest sense, flesh out these characters.
Or in its most literal sense.
It's just, it's just trivialist.
And I mean, there's one bit, I don't want to spoil it for people, but you know, there's a scene in the second episode where, where, where the guy you were describing rather lovingly as this caddish character, you know, the guy you love to hate, who, who essentially
gropes this young woman in an extraordinarily aggressive and crude way.It's done as a comedy moment because she then ends up dropping food on someone else.
And this is somehow a moment of enlightenment for him because by episode three, he's beginning to turn into a nicer character.Although I haven't carried on, I suspect that's the beginning of his narrative arc.And you could see that
It literally was, we've set all these people up, we've told you nothing about them, it's just they're all shagging.
And now we thought maybe we'll give them a story and we're going to divide them into goodies and baddies in the crudest and most cartoonish way possible.
I agree.Although, I will say that through Rupert Campbell Black's redemption arc, I did find myself feeling multiple things about him at once.And I feel sort of like that doesn't happen when characters are only two dimensional, right?
Like I both found him increasingly a little redeeming and appealing, but also like perpetually sort of revolting. Like, he has this kind of bizarro Disney prince uncanny valley thing that you just can't help but sort of get the ick every time I see.
Harriet, what do you think?Do you feel like the characters did get more three-dimensional?
Yeah, I think so.I mean, for example, one of the things that isn't shown in early episodes, but which really does develop is that you've got a couple of seemingly secondary characters, one being Freddy and the other one being Lizzie and
amid all the terrible and unsexy sex that happens in the show this genuine romance blossoms between these two side characters which isn't about sex and which doesn't involve the characters who were sort of like presented as the like real like
sexual go-getters of the show, and it's nuanced, and it's kind of sexy sometimes, and it's really quite romantic, and there's a real sort of tension that is built there, which is made more incredible to the British viewer by the fact that Freddie, one of the characters, is played by Danny Dyer, who is not an actor who the Brits tend to associate with subtlety.
So I did feel that there were really lots of places in the show where character was built and there were relationships that you could actually invest in.
Can I ask us to place Jilly Cooper a little bit for listeners who don't know her?She's written a number of books.This is the second in a series called The Ruckshirt Chronicles.They all take place in this fictional town.The 11th came out last year.
They've been going since 1985 until now.But she feels like a very 80s character to me.Can you describe her, either of you, to global listeners?Like, I think of her as the sort of 80s Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City.
Like, she was a columnist that wrote about marriage and sex and housework and then started writing romance novels.Is that right?
Yeah, I think the first thing she did was a column for a newspaper called something like How to Stay Married.It came from, I mean the sort of milieu that she depicts in this show, upper middle class, lower upper class. background.
The reason I'm slightly embarrassed to have not actually read any of her books before is that I absolutely love the sort of writing that Jilly Cooper is often dismissed as doing not necessarily bonk busters but you know my favorite writer is Marion Keys who's an Irish novelist whose work is often dismissed as chick lit and you know I'd say I've read like 20 books by her and in the same way you know I think
When I read about Jilly Cooper, she's often sort of not exactly written off, but sort of like endearingly looked down on in the media, you know.
And to be honest, I had presumed that it was sort of Fifty Shades of Grey for the 80s, like people who wanted to be looking at porn, but didn't have the internet then. Or perhaps, you know, women in particular.
But having watched this show and having sort of read a bit more about the humor that goes into her writing, I think I've been sort of taken in by her public persona and fully intent on rediscovering her as a great and enjoyable author, which I think is perhaps something that she isn't often remembered as.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, they are. They're also famously quite mucky novels.I mean, they are genuinely erotic fiction.There is quite a lot of descriptive time spent on the sex and the feelings and the sizes and the positions.
And so, I mean- What have you read, Robert?
I haven't, but I've been reading clips, excerpts about as I read the reviews of the series.And you know, Okay, that's an interesting description.But she has this very jolly sex.She's like your jolly sex pot in the country.
That's basically her sort of persona.
I'd love to get a little deeper into the show to figure out kind of what it is.You know, it's a funny beast, as we were saying.It's an adaptation of this old book that was hugely popular, but as you say, also sort of looked down on.
It's very British.You could say it's about power and sex and the 80s and class.And I'd love to unpack those a little more.Maybe first, class.Like, I know this is an American's favorite question, like, what's going on with all of you in class?
And, you know, we don't have nobility.But was there anything there that, like, interesting about class, actually, that you think that the show bore out?
Well, I mean, there are touches of class politics that kick in.I mean, there's several points.
So the main baddie, David Tennant, is very rich and successful, but has also married somebody who is from a higher social caste, as it were, proper aristocracy.
And that's touched upon, and that's why he's having an affair with somebody else, because she's not really glamorous enough. for him.
And the Danny Dyer character that Harriet referred to is clearly of working or lower middle class origin, has worked his way up and has gained money.
And some of those tensions, there's a scene I saw where they're laughing at his clothes because they're the wrong clothes for a hunt. But it's all terribly obvious.
I mean, this might play for an American audience, which hasn't seen these cliches for decades.But you know, it's really basic and obvious stuff that you've seen forever.So I don't think it's got any particularly valid or insightful commentary.
No, I wouldn't say that it does either.I think the way she looks at class in this show is different to a show like Downton Abbey, for example, where it's sort of this upstairs downstairs thing.
As far as I see it, what we've watched so far, she's basically concerned with the elite.So class plays out in this in terms of old elites, new elites, interlopers into the elites.
But as far as I'm trying to think, I don't think there are any characters in the show who don't have money, for example, and are trying to rush up against this world without it.
You're further into this series than me, but the romance that you describe as being the one decent, tender one, they are both more lower class.They're the ones who aren't immediately rushing off to have affairs, aren't they?
So they are not emancipated sexually.
Yeah, the sexual emancipation of the British upper classes is never something that I think was the case, but yeah, maybe in this show.
I love the fact that, by the way, despite us being three journalists sat around this table, we haven't actually spoken about this as a show about the media, which is what it ostensibly is.
Lest we forget that the issue at question in the show is not the affair, it is who is going to get the franchise to run the Cotswolds TV broadcasting channel.
Amazingly it wasn't advertised as a gripping saga about regional television.
Yeah, I actually did want to ask you about that, Robert, because like the thing that you seem to be most peeved by in your piece is that it was not the 80s, as an 80s show, as a show about the media in the 80s, this was not the 80s that you recognized.
I mean, no, what makes me peeve about the show is that I think it's absolute rubbish.I just think it's poor.That's what I peeve about.I'm quite prepared to watch
high quality rubbish, as long as I think there's some value or humor or some joie de vivre in it.And then there's none of this.I mean, of course it isn't the 80s I remembered.
I doubt it was the 80s that anyone remembered, including possibly Julie Cooper.But you know, that was just for fun.But I mean, I know my main gripe is it's just, they haven't put the work in.
Why do you think the show was so popular with British critics?The FT gave it four stars, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph all gave it five stars.I was curious about that.
I think my answer to this is going to be really boring and, you know, not make for good tape.But I know Robert doesn't agree.I just think it's a really well made
pacey drama and that is not what you're expecting you're expecting something pretty throwaway you know without like great production values and it goes above and beyond that it somehow manages with the exception of you know a couple of things that we've been discussing in terms of moments that feel like a bit close to the bone it somehow manages to tread the line of
celebrating this vision of the 80s was also sort of acknowledging the bad bits of it.So I think people sort of probably did not have high expectations.Those expectations were surpassed.
And yeah, with the exception of Robert, you know, people found that it over delivered.
I have two different theories on this.I think the first is that a lot of people in the media, particularly cultural critics, you know, remember the 80s and enjoyed the 80s and want to be reminded of it.
And the one thing I did like about this was the soundtrack, because it's a soundtrack that I remember very, very well.And so I think for a lot of people, it's just, this is the 80s.I love the 80s.And so,
I know, the cars, the clothes, it's fine.
The clothes, God help me.But yes, that's true.And the other thing I think is that
Obviously, as our morality and sensibilities have evolved, all the things that you can't get away with on television anymore, and all the things you can't get away with saying and doing, and even admitting to watching, you can do if you place them in a period a while ago, before those sensibilities existed.
So all the bad behavior that you wouldn't be able to put in a modern TV show, you can put in an old TV show, and you can, oh, those were the days, hey, wasn't it?Everything was so much easier then.
And you can pretend to still be outraged by the bad behavior. while secretly reveling in all those things that you wish were on television more.
Yeah, and again, it comes back to how it takes place within this microcosm of the very, very rich, who to most of us are a sort of spectator sport anyway.
So we get to, it's not just that it's distanced by being in the 80s, it's distanced by sort of taking place in this milieu that we already see as kind of characters that are there for public consumption and enjoyment rather than real life.
I would love to talk a little about this question of kind of what we want out of television that looks back.I think of Rivals as a sort of period piece.
But unlike Bridgerton or Downton Abbey or The Crown, it's a period piece about a time that we remember. which is sort of what gives it this complicated tension, right?
Like, I could kind of feel the straining in the show a little around, like, making a show about the 80s that's true to the time and this book, but also doesn't offend modern sensitivities or seem too old-fashioned.And that's a hard balance.And
I guess while I was watching it, there were some points where I just thought, you know, the thing that would scratch the itch better is just to watch a show from the 80s or watch a movie from the 80s.
Like the technology was good enough back then that it still holds up.So I guess my question is sort of how soon is too soon to be making, you know, these period pieces about the past?
I mean, I think it's not really, it's set in the eighties, therefore it has eighties costumes and eighties cars and eighties music, but it's a sort of timeless, you know, Julie Cooper's been writing the same story basically for a very long time.
And it hasn't, I mean, lots of things are setting.I remember the series a couple of years ago, It's a Sin, you know, all about essentially the gay community in Britain as the AIDS plague hit.Now,
That wasn't my life, and it wasn't my experience, but I recognized the 80s that they portrayed, and I recognized some of the people, and I remember being touched very, very peripherally by this and seeing it.
It's entirely easy and possible to set something accurately in a recent decade, but that's just not what this program is trying to do.This is not a sort of feel-bad show.
I think I'd probably agree with Robert that I think when people were sort of thinking shall we make this show they were probably looking at the way Jilly Cooper writes thinking that looks like a lot of fun but is it too much is it too strange for the way we think now and I suppose they felt they could do it by virtue of it being in the 80s because that felt just foreign
enough to us.I mean it's set in the 80s in the way that you might go to like an 80s disco or something.It's that come to life rather than any attempt to historic accuracy.
I mean the 80s is an important decade economically.It's the end of Britain's pretensions to be a manufacturing power.It's a major move towards becoming a service economy, particularly becoming a financial services economy.
You have all the dislocation of the Thatcher years, the smashing of trade unions, and you have the Cold War, and you have the 80s.This is a difficult decade with some good parts for some people.If you're a winner in the 80s, you really were a winner.
This show is only interested in the winners.And so it's not looking at the people who in any way were discomforted in that time.
Yeah, and I think it's worth pointing out in terms of how it feels distanced from reality that it is my understanding that even in the 80s, people who worked in the media did not live in aristocratic manners just by virtue of having, you know... The house of the guy from Poldark.
Yeah, it's true.Yeah, it's a good point.It's like easy to forgive a ton of things if this show is set in the 80s.Like these people, are they having sex in front of their children?Like, oh, it was the 80s.
Exactly, which I suppose is how Bridgerton works as well, right?But in my mind, this is, I've always found Bridgerton very dull and saccharine.I found this more interesting.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.Is there anything that either of you want to see depicted about the 80s on screen that this was never going to give you?Is there a show to be made?
I mean, to be honest, I mean, there's been a lot.I mean, there've been a lot of shows about the Thatcher era.The number of programmes I've seen where the description is set against the backdrop of the Thatcher era, there's an awful lot of them.
I mean, I wouldn't mind seeing one just occasionally where, you know, the baddie isn't a scheming conservative minister secretly trying to sell off the National Health Service.You know, there's a sort of left critique.
You don't often see the right critique.We used to have phrases, I don't know if the phrase yuppies travelled, but you know, Yes, we have.
This was a term of abuse in Britain because there were these young poor people on the make, these barrow boys who were getting to sip from the cup and they were having all the treats that other more deserving people had.
So it was an important decade in creating opportunity for people to break down some barriers, certainly financial barriers.This is, I think, an interesting thing
worth telling, but it's always told with their sort of, they're secretly selling their souls to do this.So I wouldn't mind seeing a program that viewed things from their point of view positively.
Yeah, yeah.Harriet, I guess maybe as our last question, like you live in the Cotswolds.Does this show accurately depict the countryside?Yeah, I live- How does it compare to the real life Cotswolds?
I live adjacent to the celebrity heart of the Cotswolds, near Chipping Norton, so adjacent to what is known as the Chippy set, which encompasses Jeremy Clarkson, former Prime Minister David Cameron.
And when I was reading Robert's column about, you know, this shows about the 80s, but the 80s weren't really like that for me is sort of the subtext.I was thinking, I live in the Cotswolds, but the Cotswolds aren't really like this for me.
Unfortunately, I mean, I do believe the world definitely exists, the sort of elite world exists.I had to do an interview a couple of weeks ago with a sort of fixer based in the Cotswolds called Harry.
And we began the conversation by saying, you know, oh, my friends call me Harry too.And the first anecdote he told was about how every year he has a party where he invites all the Harrys he knows.And last year, Prince Harry came.
And I just thought, listening to that story, like, OK, you know, this world, this world is there.I just don't have access to it and don't particularly think I want to have access to it.But I don't, honestly.
Well, may we all enjoy the worlds we do exist in.Robert and Harriet, this is so fun.Thank you.We'll be back in just a moment for more or less.
It feels surreal to say this after months and months of campaigning, but the U.S.election is finally here.And if you thought the campaign season was a lot, well, post-election day will be a doozy too.
To help make sense of what will happen next, tune into the Swamp Notes podcast every Saturday morning.You can listen on the FT News Briefing feed wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome back for More or Less, where each guest says one thing they want to see more of or less of in culture.Robert, what do you have?
OK, well, actually inspired by my boycott of the end of this series, I'm actually going to talk about something which I feel people don't do enough, which is walk away from things that they don't enjoy.My wife is a dreadful completist.
So if we get more than three or four episodes into something, you know, it's going to go on.And that's OK if it's a one one serious thing.But if you get something like Grey's Anatomy, you know, you're never going to get the lounge back.
And actually I'm very much one of those people who will, I didn't enjoy this.I'm not watching it anymore.Or I liked one series, but I can't be bothered to watch a second.
And this also goes to the theater where I think there's a great deal to be said for leaving at halftime.You know, make it fast, but you know, if you're not, if you're not enjoying it, just go to the bar, have a drink and don't go back in.
And I'm a big fan of not wasting your time doing things you don't want to do.So that's my, let's do more of that.
Okay, more of that.I'm shook by this idea of leaving a play halfway.That's so different than stopping a book halfway.That was great.Harriet, what about you?
I have a more, which I feel, you know, I've done a few mores and a few lesses on this show, and this is probably the more that I feel most strongly about and that would most improve the quality of my life.
And it does relate to what we've been discussing this week, I know, on Tenderhooks, which is I like to read a lot of what you would call, you know, quote, unquote, light
books so I mentioned Marion Keys before, Jilly Cooper would also fall into that but also things like you know the Richard Osman murder books like all these like slightly like books that aren't sort of like challenging you particularly but they're just like really good reads.
The problem I have and the thing I would like more of is nowhere will review them in a way that tells you whether they're actually good or not.
So even something like the new Richard Osman book, you know, which is huge, like number one bestseller, you might find a couple of think pieces on it, but you will not just find an FT critic sitting down and saying, this book is well plotted, you know, the characters are well developed.
It's good, it's bad, which means I often find myself wasting my time on books which are at the top of the charts but which you know just aren't actually very well written because no one will take these books seriously.
So I would just love it if good journalists started paying attention to you know quote unquote not good books and just telling me whether I should read them or not.
I think it's a really good point.
It's a good point.Mine is a more, it's more clothing swaps.I spent a significant portion this summer of my living, breathing life posting my stupid clothes on these websites, Depop and Poshmark, to sell the clothes that I don't wear.
And I know that it works for many people, but after too many hours of work, I made probably a total of $80 that I just used to buy something else.
And a few weeks ago, I went to a clothes swap that my sister hosted at her gift shop, and a bunch of people brought all the things that they liked but didn't fit them right.And I just did an amazing job.I got three shirts.I got two sweaters.
I'm wearing a pair of jeans that I got there. And that made me think, this is just another case for living in reality versus living on the internet.So that's my more.More clothes swap.If you're invited to one, go.
If you have a bunch of clothes, throw a normal party that's just a party, but in the corner, have a clothes swap.Do it for your fellow humans.
That's great.I totally agree.
And I'm not sure if Robert will have come across the slightly self-deprecating term girl maths, but I would say the definition of girl maths is like when I've done similarly to you and sold a top for two pounds on Vinted and then paid to buy a bag to put it in and paid to drive half an hour to the nearest petrol station where I can find a box to put it in to send it and then let you go home feeling really smug and like, you know, entrepreneur in the making.
Right.Exactly.And you're you're like your salary per hour is in the negative.Yeah.Robert, Harriet, what a joy.Thank you both for coming on the show.And pleasure.Yeah.Appreciate it. That's the show.
Thank you for listening to Life and Art from FT Weekend.I've put links to things that we've discussed in the show notes, including Robert's column and the FT's review of Rivals.
Also in the show notes are ways to stay in touch with me on email and on social.I am mostly on Instagram at Lilah Rapp, chatting with all of you about culture. I'm Laila at Raptopolis, and here's my wonderful team.
Katya Kumkova is our senior producer.Lulu Smith is our producer.Our sound engineers are Joe Salcedo, Breen Turner, and Sam Jovinko with Original Music by Metaphor Music.
Topher Voorhees is our executive producer, and our global head of audio is Cheryl Brumling.Have a lovely weekend, and we'll find each other again on Monday.
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