Rivals is being produced by Happy Prince, which is part of ITV Studios, and will air globally on Disney+, on Hulu in the US and on Star+ in Latin America. In 2016 it was announced that Cooper’s series would be adapted for ITV by UK production company FilmWave, although this never materialised. Riders, the first book in the Rutshire Chronicles series, was adapted into a film in 1993 starring Marcus Gilbert as Campbell-Black. The eight-episode series, which will bring a 2020s lens. Treadwell-Collins said Cooper’s “iconic novels’ razor-sharp observations on class, sex, love and what it means to be British resonate even more today than when Jilly wrote them in the 1980s”. One of Jilly Cooper’s best-loved novels, Rivals, is set to be adapted for a Disney+ TV series, the streaming service has announced.

The author has previously revealed that Campbell-Black was a composite of the Duchess of Cornwall’s first husband Andrew Parker Bowles, fashion designer Rupert Lycett Green, and Michael Howard, the 21st Earl of Suffolk. She said she was “so, so excited” about the adaptation and could not wait to see who would step into the shoes of Campbell-Black. I’ll finish up with a couple of Jilly’s non-fiction titles, but don’t worry, they’re still full of animals, Jilly’s great love, though with a more serious side.The series is being written by Dominic Treadwell-Collins, who was an executive producer on A Very English Scandal and EastEnders, and Olivier award winner Laura Wade, and who wrote the screenplay for the film The Riot Club.Ĭooper will also be an executive producer. Then I’ll introduce you to two of my favourite Rutshire books, both starring Jilly’s most famous and enduring hero, Rupert Campbell-Black. I’ll begin with an amuse-bouche – Bella, one of Jilly’s earlier novels from the 1970s. If you’ve never read her, you’re missing out on what fabulous fun being very naughty can be. Emotional, dramatic, passionate, romantic and drowning in a tsunami of puns, Cooper’s books are escapism at its finest, and that’s still true today. I re-read the books continually as a teenager. Jilly not only promised that ugly ducklings often turn into swans, but that anyone’s life might eventually turn out to be fabulous.

One of the reasons I’ve loved Jilly Cooper for so long is that even though a lot of it is very glitzy, her books are also populated by girls like me girls and women who were self-deprecating and weren’t sure if they’d ever be attractive, or if the chap they fancied would ever ask them out, never mind fall in love with them. Set in an idyllic world of show-jumping, huge country houses, and a variety of animals and posh people behaving very badly, Riders was wildly glamorous and published in a golden age of romance blockbusters. Share this video: Jilly Cooper's Riders: Trailer for 1993 ITV adaptation. I was fifteen when Riders, the first of the ‘Rutshire Chronicles’ – so-called because that’s where the main characters hail from – came out. Jilly Cooper's hit novel followed the caddish adventures of Rupert Campbell-Black.

Riders jilly cooper series