And when I told them, they'd smile disbelievingly, as if I'd been caught out in some shameful lapse of taste. Meeting his beautiful wife, Helen Macaulay, does little to curb his promiscuity and he eventually falls back into a life of parties, alcohol, and casual sex. If I lost caste when I left primary school and ceased to be the only child who did her homework, then I slithered even further down the scale at university. Cooper plays fairy godmother to her favourites, conjuring up a coup de foudre at the end of each novel, where a damaged, dissolute, glamorous character falls for someone plain, available and kind: Daisy and Ricky in Polo; Lynsander and Kitty in The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous; Lucy and Tristan in Score!

Arcane, complex, frequently telegraphed yet rarely discussed, the British class system must be a nightmare to negotiate if you're born outside this country. Danny Dyer, meanwhile, is swapping ‘Eastenders’ for the countryside to play Freddie Jones, a noble-minded self-made electronics millionaire who, along with his wife Valerie (Lisa McGrillis), finds himself victim of Rutshire snobbery.Rising star Charles Cooney has been playing polo since his school days at Millfield and has since risen the ranks to become one of Britain’s most promising players, with three horses and a Hook Polo ambassadorship under his belt to date. The fourth-generation polo player in his family, he was born in Buenos Aires to an Argentinian father and a German mother, and remembers watching his father training with the Sultan of Brunei. He’s learning from the best, too, playing on the aptly named King Power team alongside Argentinian masters Gonzalo Pieres and Facundo Pieres.

The eight-part saga is based heavily on Jilly Cooper's bestselling book Rival s follows the tense rivalry between two ambitious and charismatic men, Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) and Lord Tony Baddingham, and is packed with sex, romantic entanglements and shocking antics.The Rutshire Chronicles is often dismissed as airport fiction, but Cooper owes as much to Jane Austen as she does to Jackie Collins. Irish actor Aidan made his name playing Ross Poldark on BBC1 period drama Poldark, but has since had roles in Leonardo and The Suspect and will play an elite tennis coach in Prime Video's Fifteen-Love.

Katherine Parkinson ( Humans) stars as Lizzie Vereker, a romantic novelist “consistently overlooked by her preening and self-centred TV presenter husband”, James Vereker, played by Oliver Chris ( The Crown). And it’s richly cast, too, with David Tennant, Emily Atack, ‘Poldark’s Aidan Turner and Danny Dyer all appearing.

This is exactly the sort of snitty remark, by the way, that Cooper would expect of a hairy-legged feminist like me. The minute we met with Alex we knew he’d perfectly embody my all-time hero, the iconic, racy, ruthless,and devastatingly handsome, Rupert Campbell-Black," says Jilly. LukePasqualino( Our Girl, Skins, The Musketeers)plays the charmingBasil ‘Bas’Baddingham, Tony’s younger brother and the proprietor ofCotchester’shot spot, Bar Sinister. 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’. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions.

Some of these characters, namely Campbell-Black and numerous characters associated with him, also occur in Cooper's novel Pandora, although it is not part of the series [ citation needed]. He’s had roles in The Boys, Silent Witness , The Miniaturist and was Metatron in His Dark Materials. Nafessa Williams, who played Robyn Crawford in ‘Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody’, is Cameron Cook, a talented American TV exec brought to Corinium by Baddingham to produce Declan O’Hara’s new talk show. The lead director of Rivals is BAFTA-nominated Elliot Hegarty (Ted Lasso, Cheaters, Trying), who also serves as executive producer on episodes 1-3.

It is the second in the series and features many of the much loved, and affectionately loathed, characters that readers first met in Riders. They own vast "country piles", in varying states of repair ("crumbling" if they can't lay their hands on any capital; not-crumbling if they can), and tend to be a bit problematic by today's standards. He’s also very easy on the eye, with the kind of rugged good looks only Jilly Cooper could dream of.