Rupert Campbell-Black is a bounder, a braggart, a scoundrel who won’t play by the rules, by Jove. “The man is a loose cannon,” hisses show-jumping coach Malise Gordon (Rupert Everett), as Rupert (Alex Hassell) directs his own cannon at the latest in a seemingly endless conga-line of pantingly grateful locals. By “his own cannon” I mean, of course, his penis. Or rather his “willy”, for there is no aspect of the anatomy – or, indeed, life – that Rivals will not reduce to a cartoon while pointing and sniggering like a schoolgirl. And quite right, too. Who wants boring old reality when you could be engaging in an explosive bout of nude tennis with the MP for Chalford and Bisley (“Tit fault!”)? Anyway, back to Rupert, who, as the aforementioned minister for sport and “most handsome man in England”, is the throbbing nub of this unapologetically preposterous adaptation of the late Jilly Cooper’s 80s bonkbuster.
Rupert has a head for business and a body for wearing jodhpurs while shouting “ARE YOU READY FOR ME TO COME DOWN YOUR CHIMNEY?” during sex. Men admire his ruthlessness; horses are magnetised by his reckless approach to leisurewear.
And now the alpha-cad is back, his buttocks ascending like bronzed, restless larks above Rutshire’s sylvan glades as series two thrusts jubilantly into view.
The last time we saw Rupert he was scampering into the night with ruthless producer Cameron Cook (Nafessa Williams), the latter having just thwacked dastardly Corinium TV boss Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) over the noggin with some trophy or other. Why? Because Tony had found out about her involvement with rival consortium Venturer and arch-enemy Rupert and had slapped her, the bastard. The solution? Rupert will hide Cameron from Tony in his love-cottage in Devon, the best place to hold what we are unfortunately compelled to call “crisis bonks”. “Thank you,” pants Cameron after one such debriefing. “Plenty more where that came from,” smirks Rupert, his oiled thighs shimmering amid a cumulonimbus of Silk Cut. And there is. There is frantic halfway-up-the-stairs sex. There is shouting-into-a-full-length-mirror sex. And there is a soft-focus barnyard tryst during which Rupert buries his saturnine slab of a face between Cameron’s knockers and proceeds to bellow “NYAAAAARRR” while she thwacks his thighs with a riding crop. It’s quite something.
Buried somewhere within this thrashing forest of limbs is a plot. This, too, is ridiculous. We join the shaggers as they prepare for the 1987 general election. Will Rupert retain his seat or will Tony and monstrous tabloid hack Beattie (Annabel Scholey) conspire to stitch him up like a kipper? And who will prove victorious in the ongoing struggle to secure the coveted Central South West television franchise, eh? Who? WHO?
The acting – huge and gleeful within the ever-present fug of hairspray – is superb. Everyone involved is clearly having the time of their life. Not least Aidan Turner as densely moustached broadcast hunk Declan O’Hara. His expression in the shower as wife Maud (Victoria Smurfit) brings him to a juddering climax – think a badger slowly realising he’s left a Vesta curry in the oven – will live long in the memory.
Other things happen for seemingly no reason at all. A horse in pink legwarmers sashays past the camera. There is an unexplained closeup of a dancing sheepdog and a bit where twin polo players take their skimpy underwear off and leap, winkies akimbo, into an indoor pool.
Every frame is saturated with cigarette smoke and an affection for the 80s so intense it almost manages to make the era’s casual bigotry and venality look as quaint as boil-in-the-bag cod (the latter served here with a dented box of Micro Chips, in accordance with the scriptures).
The dialogue is, as ever, fabulous. There are tremendous references to Frank Bough. And there are many winking, twinkling jokes re hideously outdated attitudes to homophobia and the ignorance and panic that once surrounded Aids. Rivals walks this tonal tightrope in a flammable fuchsia tutu. Which is to say, perfectly.
How best to reward such exquisitely knowing escapism? Ten stars? Ten thousand stars? Rivals is beyond earthly praise. Let us instead insert a single rose between its tireless bum cheeks and raise a glass of Cinzano to its naked audacity. Bottoms up!