The brand-new eight-part series is based on the novel by Jilly Cooper. It is part of the author’s bestselling Rutshire Chronicles, an iconic and beloved piece of British literary history, capturing the joy, drama, excess, and brazen power-grabbing of the affluent elite in 1980s England. Executive produced by Dominic Treadwell-Collins (A Very English Scandal, Holding, EastEnders) and Alexander Lamb (The Bay, We Hunt Together, Ackley Bridge) and written by Treadwell-Collins with Olivier Award-winner Laura Wade (The Riot Club). The UK original series will premiere on Disney+ this autumn.
Rivals dives headfirst into the cutthroat world of independent television in 1986, where the shoulder pads are big and ambitions even bigger. In the fictional upper-class county of Rutshire, a long-standing rivalry between two powerful men is about to boil over: ex-Olympian, Member of Parliament, and notorious womaniser Rupert Campbell-Black, and his Rutshire neighbour Tony Baddingham, played by David Tennant, controller of the independent TV franchise Corinium Television. As tensions rise and rivalries deepen, there are spilled secrets, forged alliances, and snatched liaisons that draw wives, lovers, colleagues, friends, and families into their battle.
Rivals is a joyously mischievous rollercoaster ride, steamy in its love stories and packed with larger-than-life characters. Yet beneath the spectacle and fun, the series brings a 2020s lens to the 1980s, offering a raw exploration of a complicated moment in British history when class, race, sex, wealth, and sexual liberation meant that, for the very privileged few, there were no limits to what they could achieve.
Executive producers for the series are Dominic Treadwell-Collins and Alexander Lamb for Happy Prince, which is part of ITV Studios, Felicity Blunt, Laura Wade, Rivals author Jilly Cooper and Director of Scripted Content for Disney+ EMEA Lee Mason.
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