THE CRITICS ARE GUSHING about the pneumatic naked tennis. Mrs Ned is agog at Aidan Turner’s fecund facial furniture. Me? I’m salivating over the business deals: the new screen adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s 1980s novel Rivals brings to life an important chapter in Britain’s commercial history.
With larger-than-life characters, appalling behaviour and enormous fortunes won and lost, the ITV franchise battles created great headlines for the pink pages. But they also cast a shadow over our culture and media industry, from which we are still suffering today.
The fictional Cotswold TV station Corinium, overseen by David Tennant’s petulant, bullying Lord Baddingham, lies at the intersection of three real-world ITV franchises. Each of these businesses’ colourful leaders may have been fuel for Cooper’s fertile imagination.
There was David Ormsby-Gore, 5th Baron…
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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, December/January 2025