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Page Contents
Coincidentally, Aidan Turner has previously filmed at Chavenage House (The Priory in Rivals)
Plot
Follows Rupert Campbell-Black and Tony Baddingham as they have a longstanding rivalry that comes to a head..
The same filming location was also used to portray Trenwith House in the 2015 BBC TV adaptation of Poldark
So obvs read the book an aeon ago (it was like a coming of age ritual in a certain time and place) and TBH remembered very little aside from the odd name (coz some Jilly created were soooo de rigeur – Rupert Campbell Black says it all – and have somewhat passed into the lexicon) but almost immediately I started to, if not remember the plot wholesale, get a synaptic snap with the heady scent of YSL Opium from watching The Rivals.This adaptation (one ep in) is seeming to get it just right.
Its silly giggles rather than laugh out loud and saucy not salacious
It quickly built the world – the 80s, greedy Thatcherite old boys and yuppies, bored wives and fearsome warrior women all treated like meat whatever they do, concord, cigars and the birdie song, the English class strata, the UK in a globalising world tryna dig nails in at the top…
and the socio-political commentary, whilst not being shoved in your face, is much more clear than when reading the books
It might be coz I'm older and have met more people that Cooper's critique of British culture is more obvious, but I think its also the casting, the accents, the costumes – drawing out each character's habitus (to cite Bordeau) and presenting it to the audience for consideration, admiration, denigration and/or titillation.Okay its a little bit of a panty, pantie panto but FFS why not?!