Rivals For anyone not familiar with Jilly Cooper, she is an iconic writer of spicy (understatement), glitzy-glam romance novels full of rich privileged people behaving very, very badly. Escapist reading at its finest. Rivals is the televised version of her book of the same name. The plot goes something like this: Lord Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) owns a local TV station and despises Rupert Campbell-Black, a freshly divorced, former show-jumper turned Conservative Minister for sport (the feeling’s mutual). Into town moves Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner) hired to work at the aforementioned TV station, but as a former BBC presenter, has had the audacity to pack and bring along his integrity. Tempers flare, egos are bruised, words are exchanged. There’s a lot more besides, obviously, but the plot is beside the point really – it is merely window dressing for the vulgar excesses of a 1980’s world, where people smoked and drank and sexed themselves into oblivion. A world where sexual exploitation, racism, abuse of power and misogyny are just all part of the fun and champagne parties, naked tennis and affairs are par for the course. Rivals is an unabashedly loud and joyous, raunchy romp filled with sly humor and satire, with (surprisingly) a lovely, authentic relationship between two characters running right through its hedonistic middle. If such salacious, wicked fun isn’t able to distract you from you-know-what, nothing can.
Derry Girls This show has a crazy frenetic energy which put me off at first, but I circled back to it and discovered that it really is every bit as good as people said. It’s the brutally funny story of five friends at a Catholic girls school in 1990’s Derry, Ireland. It’s set against the backdrop of The Troubles, which hovers quietly in the background without ever commanding center stage, but wreaks havoc nonetheless. It’s absolutely impossible not to fall in love with these teens as they dive headlong into the world, making an endless array of bad decisions, tangling themselves up in frequent misunderstandings and tumbling into a deluge of outlandish scenarios all while trying to dodge the dead-pan Sister Michael. Its humour is rapid fire and hilarious, its energy is feisty and the acting is brilliant. Added bonus: fabulous soundtrack
The Pursuit Of Love For anyone who has read Nancy Mitford’s book of the same name, know that this TV series takes its frothy, flippant tone and ramps it up by about 358 notches. It follows the story line of the book remarkably closely, but in an overly stylized, over- the- top fashion (my favorite fashion of all, see here) This does stretch credulity to the outer limits of acceptable on occasion, but that’s all part of the fun. Lily James is perfect as the gossipy gauzy Linda, Dominic West plays xenophobic head of the family, Matthew, with his outlandish notions stopping just a hair short of outright crazy, but in truth, it is Andrew Scott who steals the show as the deliciously eccentric and bohemian Lord Merlin, despite his minor role. It’s peppered with real vintage footage and photographs which randomly pop up on the screen and has a high octane soundtrack, which, combined with gorgeous sets and oodles of lovely clothes makes the show three hours of divinely, gloriously campy fun.
