Jilly Cooper fears Rivals TV adaptation might stun viewers with risqué content

04 January 2023 , 18:13

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Jilly Cooper fears people won't be able to handle risque content in Rivals TV adaptation (Image: Mike Marsland/WireImage)

Writer Jilly Cooper fears TV audiences will be unable to handle the risque content of her “bonkbuster” book Rivals.

Jilly, 85, is overseeing Disney’s eight-part adaptation of her raunchy 1988 tale of sex, marriage and rivalry in the cut-throat world of television.

She questioned how it would go down with today’s viewers.

She said: “They’re much more rigid – much more censorious. I don’t know about sex, you can’t say anything about anything. You daren’t.”

She added with a chuckle: “I think they still have sex, people? I don’t know.”

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The writer herself, who has sold more than 12 million books, has admitted to being shocked by all the sex in her novel Riders.

Jilly fears people might not be able to handle the content (PA)

She has sold more than 12 million books (Getty Images)

She said Rivals, the second book in her Rutshire Chronicles series, is less steamy.

Jilly will offer advice about scripts and is an executive producer of the new series, written by former EastEnders producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins, who was also behind A Very English Scandal.

In 2002 Jilly said the bravery and charisma one of Rivals’ main characters, Rupert Campbell-Black, was loosely based on Andrew Parker Bowles, the former husband of the Queen consort, Camilla, and his friends. She said: “His s****iness was entirely my invention.”

The latest book Jilly is writing is called Tackle. She said: “The problem is my football book... I keep getting told to put more sex in it, from my publisher. I’m 85. I’ve forgotten how to do it.”

Ashleigh Rainbird