‘She’s Just Glorious’: David Tennant On Rivals Reunion With Doctor Who Star

David Tennant has revealed that his ‘favourite days on set’ Disney+’s new TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s famous 1988 novel involved a familiar face.

David appears alongside Alex Hassell, Aidan Turner, Danny Dyer, Katherine Parkinson and Victoria Smurfit in the ‘raunchy’ new drama, which is set in the English countryside in the mid-1980s.

But the Doctor Who star’s on-screen wife, Lady Monica Baddingham, is played by none other than former co-star Claire Rushbrook, who starred alongside Tennant in season 2 episodes The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit as Ida Scott.

“And to have that husband and wife relationship. When she embodied Monica, there was no doubt of exactly who that woman was,” he added.

“She’s just glorious, and she’s also one of the loveliest, funniest people with the dirtiest sense of humour. I think possibly my favourite days on set were the Mr and Mrs Baddingham days.”

So far, the show has won unanimous praise from critics, with the Mail pointing out the show stays true to “Jilly’s obsession with bonking, boozing, groping and relentless political incorrectness”, while The Telegraph’s review hailed it as an “un-PC romp” that “stays true to Jilly Cooper’s spirit”.

Rivals arrives on Disney+ on 18 October.

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Rishi Sunak Is Partial To A Jilly Cooper ‘Bonkbuster’ Novel, Apparently

In yet another unlikely-sounding moment for British politics, Rishi Sunak is reportedly a fan of Jilly Cooper’s erotic romance novel Riders – perhaps the very definition of the 1980s “bonkbuster”.

While a prime minister’s best-loved tome is usually a worthy affair, the current resident of No.10 apparently prefers something a bit more steamy – at least that’s according to the Spectator.

It’s worth noting the Spectator is well-sourced when it comes to Sunak: the magazine’s former political editor is now one of the PM’s closest Downing Street aides (and the best man at his wedding). So it’s not come from nowhere.

Whether Riders is actually one of his favourites, and not an attempt to humanise the geeky one-time tech bro (he has in the past expressed a very specific fondness for Mexican Coca-Cola) is anyone’s guess.

Cooper’s oeuvre captures the drama and excess of Britain’s affluent elite through her Rutshire Chronicles series. They do a lot of horse riding, among other things.

The action is focussed on galloping aristocrat Rupert Campbell-Black – later a Tory minister. Perhaps more famous is the book’s original cover of a female bottom clad in white jodhpurs and a male hand.

“Sex and horses: who could ask for more?,” noted the Sunday Telegraph in 1985, as the novel went on to become a runaway success.

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