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Rivals: Dame Jilly Cooper Adapt Not Wolf Hall Producer's Cup of Tea

Wolf Hall producer Sir Colin Callender hit new heights of snobbery discussing Rivals, the series adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper's novel.

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Rivals has been a hit amongst UK viewers. It's a funny, sexy, hugely entertaining adaptation of a bestselling bonkbuster novel by Dame Jilly Cooper from 1988 starring David Tennant, Alex Hassell, Aiden Turner, Emily Atack, Danny Dyer, and a host of top British acting talent in its gleefully trashy trashing of rival poshos as they fight over a television franchise license while also doing lots of bonking in posh settings in the Cotswolds. That's why those books are called bonkbusters. Believe it or not, this is the first proper big-budget adaptation of a Jilly Cooper novel despite the fact that they've sold millions of copies and garnered at least three generations of fans, mostly female readers, since the 1980s. Yet, for decades, television executives have turned their noses at adapting them.

Rivals: Wolf Hall Producer Reminds Us Snobbery is Alive and Well
Image: Hulu; BBC

Sir Colin Callender is the producer of Wolf Hall, a big-budget historical drama about King Henry VIII and his competing courtiers, which returns this weekend for a second series after a ten-year break – probably one of the longest breaks between seasons in our current streaming era. The series adapts Hilary Mantel's Booker Prizing-winning novel and is considered the gold standard of prestige BBC period costume dramas for which British television is known worldwide. He was speaking at a Broadcasting Press Guild event in London when he asked why something like Rivals would be made. The Times dutifully reported what he said about Rivals, which has been a big hit for Disney.  "The fact that something is successful is not necessarily the sole criteria by which I would judge whether it's something I would want to make or not. What are the things that I look for in a show? Is there a big idea that underpins it, that makes it relevant and interesting to a contemporary audience? Does it have something to say? Are the emotions expressed and the situations dramatised truthful? Are they entertaining? Or do they trade in clichés? All the sorts of questions I would ask of a show are such that Rivals is not a show I would make."

Sir Colin seemed to imply that a series like Rivals was beneath him, and he's not the only one in the British television industry who thinks that way. Of course, a prestige book adaptation like Wolf Hall is what every British producer dreams of winning BAFTAs for. Producers have always been snobbish about books and works that are "popular." Rivals has definitely sold millions more copies than Wolf Hall and is still remembered more than thirty years later. Could it be that books considered popular with women and people who don't need a degree in History are "lesser" than Book Prize winners? The British Establishment has always been snobbish towards works that are popular, especially with women.

Dominic Treadwell-Collins, producer of Rivals, previously the showrunner of Eastenders and lifelong Jilly Cooper fan, had told Deadline that television commissioners had turned up their noses at his idea to adapt Cooper's bestselling book. "I had meetings with the BBC and ITV years ago, and when I said, 'Would you go for something like Jilly Cooper?' they would look at me like I'd farted. There's a snobbery about her. Throughout my career, I kept mentioning Jilly, and everyone sort of laughed at and ridiculed me."

Rivals is streaming on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK and the rest of the world.

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Adi TantimedhAbout Adi Tantimedh

Adi Tantimedh is a filmmaker, screenwriter and novelist. He wrote radio plays for the BBC Radio, “JLA: Age of Wonder” for DC Comics, “Blackshirt” for Moonstone Books, and “La Muse” for Big Head Press. Most recently, he wrote “Her Nightly Embrace”, “Her Beautiful Monster” and “Her Fugitive Heart”, a trilogy of novels featuring a British-Indian private eye published by Atria Books, a division Simon & Schuster.
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