Jilly Cooper signed off on Rivals filming right up to her death
Jilly Cooper signed off on Rivals filming right up to her death
Albert TaitTue, May 12, 2026 at 6:00 AM UTC
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Lord Baddingham, played by David Tennant, wants to destroy a rival television company - Disney+
Dame Jilly Cooper was signing off filming for the new series of Rivals right up to her death, the show’s writer has said.
Dominic Treadwell-Collins said the late writer’s “voice is all the way through” the second series of the award-winning drama based on her “bonkbuster” novel.
“She signed off every single script and she was watching rushes up until the week before she died,” he told the Radio Times, referring to unedited footage. “So we’ve got her sign-off and her voice is all the way through it all.”
The Disney+ series is based on Dame Jilly’s best-selling novel of the same name, released in 1988, which is part of her Rutshire Chronicles series.
Set in the 1980s, with the backdrop of the Cotswolds countryside, Rivals dramatises the world of British television.
Dame Jilly was an active part of its production and served as an executive producer. She died aged 88 last October after suffering a fatal head injury during a fall at her Gloucestershire home.
Shortly after her death, the Queen, a close friend of Dame Jilly, visited the set of Rivals in Bristol to pay tribute to her and meet members of the cast and crew.
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In the latest series of the Hulu Original series, David Tennant returns as television boss Lord Baddingham, who is on a mission to destroy a rival television company founded by Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) and Declan O’Hara (Aiden Turner).
A trailer released last month also shows Nafessa Williams as Cameron Cook and Bella Maclean as Taggie O’Hara, who were embroiled in a love triangle with Campbell-Black in the first series.
The affair between Katherine Parkinson and Danny Dyer’s characters – Freddie Jones and Lizzie Vereker – appears set to continue, with the trailer showing the pair looking close.
Mr Treadwell-Collins, the show’s lead writer and executive producer, said the show’s sex scenes are handled with strict guardrails to ensure they serve the story and tone.
He told the Radio Times: “Every sex scene must move the story on, not be gratuitous, can titillate at times but must never make the audience feel uncomfortable or grubby.”
The late Dame Jilly Cooper is said to have signed off every script of the new series of Rivals
Speaking about intimacy coordinators, Parkinson added: “I definitely had moments back in the day when I could have benefited from somebody to have those chats with, where you’d be too embarrassed to say anything in front of a big crew.”
The second series sees the addition of guest stars Hayley Atwell, as Helen Gordon, Campbell-Black’s ex-wife and mother of his two children, and Rupert Everett as her husband Malise Gordon, Campbell-Black’s former showjumping coach and mentor.
The first three episodes of Rivals series 2 are on Disney+ on Friday.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
