EXCLUSIVE: Doctor Who star David Tennant, Danny Dyer and Aidan Turner are featuring in an ensemble cast for Disney+’s adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals.
Unveiled at last year’s Edinburgh TV Festival, Rivals is part of iconic British author Cooper’s bestselling Rutshire Chronicles and is set against the backdrop of the drama, excess and shocking antics of the power-grabbing social elite of 1980s England.
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Set in the fictional upper-class county of Rutshire, Rivals dives headfirst into the cutthroat world of independent television in 1986 when a long-standing rivalry between two powerful men is about to boil over: ex-Olympian, Member of Parliament and notorious womanizer Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) and his neighbor Tony Baddingham (Tennant), controller of the independent TV franchise Corinium Television.
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Poldark’s Turner is TV presenter Declan O’Hara, a fierce intellectual with an even fiercer temper who is wooed to Corinium from the BBC, while EastEnders actor Dyer is Freddie Jones, a self-made electrics millionaire.
The trio feature in an ensemble cast that also includes Nafessa Williams, Bella Maclean, Katherine Parkinson, Victoria Smurfit, Claire Rushbrook, Oliver Chris, Lisa McGrillis, Emily Atack, Rufus Jones, Luke Pasqualino and Catriona Chandler.
After filming wraps in the UK, the show will premiere on Disney+ in EMEA and Asia Pacific and on Star+ in Latin America. It is one of the highest-profile projects to emerge from the streamer’s UK division, alongside the likes of upcoming Stephen Graham-starrer A Thousand Blows.
Cooper said the cast “features some of the best acting talent that the British Isles has to offer,” adding, “I cannot wait to be on set and see them bring the characters I love so much to life.”
Series is produced by Dominic Treadwell-Collins’ (A Very English Scandal) indie Happy Prince, and Treadwell-Collins is also EPing and writing with Laura Wade. Alexander Lamb is also EP. Lead director is Elliot Hegarty (Ted Lasso), who also serves as executive producer on Episodes 1 to 3. Eliza Mellor (Poldark) serves as series producer.
In addition to Treadwell-Collins and Wade, the series writers room also includes Sophie Goodhart (The Baby, Sex Education), Marek Horn, Mimi Hare and Clare Naylor (The Accidental Husband), Dare Aiyegbayo (The Dumping Ground, EastEnders), Kefi Chadwick (Looted, Avoidance), Tray Agyeman, and Sorcha Kurien Walsh (The Pink Pill).
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