Latest / The Front / Sex, smokes, and risky jokes: Why you couldn’t write Rivals today

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Sex, smokes, and risky jokes: Why you couldn’t write Rivals today · The Front

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You couldn't write Rivals.
• 0:00
  Speaker 2: Now, what are you going to do?
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I'm swooning romance about a run club like that is?
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: We are so boring Now.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: From the Australian VC is the weekend edition of The Front.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: I'm Claire Harvey. It's the smash hit TV show that
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: brought steamy sex and eighties style back to the small screen.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Rivals is based on the Rutscher Chronicles novels by acclaimed
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: British author and journalist Jilly Cooper. The series traverses the
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: fierce rivalry between TV station owner Tony Baddingham played by
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: David Tennant and his arch nemesis Rupert Campbell Black played
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: by Alex Hassel. Rivals counts Queen Camilla among its biggest fans,
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: and now it's back for a second season of drama
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: and debauchery in the English countryside. Malcolm Jarrasha certing things
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: are going to happen to us in the place like this,
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: living oppositely Bracamba.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Black, It's a promiscuous liberty in there.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Sex is entertainment is one of the oldest topics you
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: can imagine, but it seems to be back with a
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: massive vengeance. Rivals the television show that got an entire
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: world swooning, is back for another season. So I'm joined
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  Speaker 3: by Milanda Rout and Jordie Gray from the Australians Culture
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: Section to talk about why it is such a phenomenon,
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: what we can expect from season two, and who was
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: the woman who created it and why everyone from the
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Queen down absolutely loves her. It really brings to life
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: the best of the eighties, doesn't it, Jeordie. Absolutely.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just so outrageous, and I think that
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: is why it's such a hit, because it is fun.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: It revels in all like the sin and the filth,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: and it doesn't apologize for it and anyway. And at
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: the same time, Jilly Kipper was such an astute chronicler
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: of the Cottsworld set because she knows it inside and out.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: And I really think, especially with television, you can tell
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: when the writers understand their milleu and the social mares
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: that they're writing about.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Lovely and for Cambell Black, why do you eat them
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: so much? Vat once?
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I want you to stay away with my daughter, dig
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: up his gun and humiliated men from two millions.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: You're my don Corinium DARNI puts it on on me. Yeah,
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: they say to all young journals write about what you know,
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: and young novelists too, and she certainly did, didn't she.
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  Speaker 3: She had a really interesting life. Jillie Cooper born just
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: at the beginning of World War Two, the daughter of
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: a brigadier, grew up in Yorkshire partly, but went to
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: sort of some posh schools and then became a young
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: journalist and really was maybe the first sex columnist. She
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: was a young reporter, a young married woman, and her
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: editor decided that she could write a great poemn about
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  Speaker 3: married life and sex, and she turned that into her
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: calling card. And by the time she wrote Rivals, or
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: the books that Rivals is based on, she was the
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: master of the craft, wasn't she? Why is the sex
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: in Rivals good? What makes good sex on TV better
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: than bad sex on TV? Because we've all seen plenty
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: of bad sex scenes on TV as well.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: I also think it was the eighties and her work
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: was called Bonkbusters, so she was the first person to
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: really write a lot of sex into romance novels. And
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: in fact, she went from being a columnist. Her first
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: works of fiction were romance, so it wasn't until she
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: kind of got to the kind of sex stage a
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: bit later on. But I think maybe it was just
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: sex and a lot of it, and they were all like,
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: you know, it's sex everywhere on planes and in toilets
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: and in garden sheds, in television stations. Like, it's not
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: a traditional way of looking at it.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: It's very athletic and not very romantic sex though, isn't it.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: It is?
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  Speaker 4: But it also looks amazing.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: It looks like everyone is covered in litters of baby oil.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: They're like gleaming, they're so muscular. I feel like a
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: lot of sex in television now has like a moral duty.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: For example, I'm watching Euphoria at the moment, and it's
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: like all the sex is there to make you feel
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  Speaker 2: really bad.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, you're supposed to be miserable once.
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  Speaker 4: You guys are terrible for each other, and you know
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  Speaker 4: I'm right, And you guys can all judge me if
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  Speaker 4: you want, but I do not care.
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  Speaker 3: I have never ever been happier.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: It's glorious, glorious, and there is literally no lesson to
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  Speaker 2: be learned.
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  Speaker 1: It's just fun.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Like it's just so fabulous, camp and over the top. Yeah,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: and dramatic. And what's really interesting about Rivals too is
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: the people who love it. Queen Camilla is a MESSI
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: I remember watching it well last year when I was
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: still I had promise after watching that I've been the eighties?
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Was her heyday? Exactly? Well, she probably lived it, and
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: it just shows it.
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  Speaker 4: As Jordy was saying before that, Jilly was obviously on
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: the money in terms of class. I read somewhere this
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: morning that in the first book, it was quite a
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: long book and like something like four hundred out of
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: five hundred pages, people were drunk because they're always drinking.
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  Speaker 4: They had this amazing garden party where they're all dressed
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  Speaker 4: up in these incredible eighties numbers, you know, drinking champagne
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  Speaker 4: like they're all just having a fabulous stoking, Yes, lots
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: of smoking.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: I think Jilli Cooper was still like that until like
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: the very end, because I remember reading this anecdote about
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: how they had assembled the writing team in the Cotswolds
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  Speaker 2: and she would just be there like, is it time
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  Speaker 2: to pop the Champagneyeah, no, Jilly, we have to wait.
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  Speaker 2: We have to wait till mid day. What can you
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  Speaker 2: make sure it's chilled? Like she was just a party animal.
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  Speaker 3: I want to read about the Jilli Cooper. You know
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: everyone's giving up alcohol now any form of red meat
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  Speaker 3: is going to give you cancer. Jillie Cooper liked the
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: Queen Mother who existed on gin and cigars. I think,
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  Speaker 3: well into her nineties. You know, lived a very long
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: life and only it died of a fall, right.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, at eighty eight.
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  Speaker 2: So great innings.
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  Speaker 4: But maybe that's why we like it as well, because
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  Speaker 4: it's back in the eighties. There was no things like
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: you shouldn't eat this. They're all drinking and there was
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: there was no war. There was, I mean there was,
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: but there was just it's such a joyous escape and
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: that's what's fabulous about it. They all look like they're
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: having a fantastic time as well.
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  Speaker 3: Jesus Christ, you.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Couldn't write rivals now, what are you going to do?
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: I'm swooning romance about a run club like that is.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: We are so boring now.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: But you can make it into a successful TV show.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: So that's really interesting, isn't it. So someone smart has
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: commissioned this knowing that you know, your generation, really, Geordie,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: were not going to see these as a kind of
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: embarrassing throwback. They were going to enjoy it. Why is
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: it kind of working as a television show in this
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: quite censorious age and for a generation who are quite
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: concerned about health and you know, sexual ethics.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's just they got the tone perfect, and
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  Speaker 2: it's like tone is everything, and rivals could not afford
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  Speaker 2: to be bad. It took thirty six years to get
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: it onto the screen. You can tell that every single
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: person involved loved it.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I think it was a very jolly bunch
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  Speaker 3: of people. Yeah, it was a lovely bunch of people. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: there was a great.
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  Speaker 2: Deal of attention was being paid to making sure there
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  Speaker 2: was a new urschool's policy on some don't that in
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  Speaker 2: terms of the sex scenes. They didn't update the sexual
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  Speaker 2: politics in any way, like there is groping, there is
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  Speaker 2: age gap relationships. I know that they they upped Taggi's
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: age by two years, taking up from eighteen to twenty.
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  Speaker 4: Because you know, it is like kind of every cliche
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  Speaker 4: of the eighties, and they, as you said, they don't
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  Speaker 4: shy away from that and they don't try and update it.
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  Speaker 4: So I think that's what's fabulous about it as well.
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  Speaker 4: And as I said, they're smoking on set, they're drinking
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: on set, they're making quite inappropriate comments about gay people,
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: about like there's a character who's a black American woman
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: who comes out and she cops it all. So they
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: don't shy away from that either. They literally say, this
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  Speaker 4: is a snapshot in time, and let's just celebrate the
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  Speaker 4: insaneness of it.
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  Speaker 3: So they've kind of broken all the rules of twenty
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: twenties television, right, which is that you need to be
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: you need to have a point, you need to have
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  Speaker 3: a kind of moral point, and that production values need
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: to be incredibly high. Maybe that's the part that they
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: where they've stuck to. They've stepped into the television renaissance
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: with these very high production values. If it was kind
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: of filmed like Neighbors, it wouldn't work.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: They describe it as a period comedy drama. Maybe that's
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: the they can get away with it because it's a
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: period drama and it's in a different time, in a
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: different place, so we don't have to place our standards
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: of today on it. That's said, I mean Bridgeton has
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: kind of was just thinking about Bridges and yeah, that
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  Speaker 4: that's a bit different, But.
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  Speaker 3: That's a period comedy drama where people are having sex
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  Speaker 3: in a way that they certainly were not in regency.
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  Speaker 3: I mean really like.
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  Speaker 4: There's no there's none of that in front of bridges.
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  Speaker 3: There was not a lot of sex before marriage.
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: No, no, not at all. Maybe we are in you know,
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: maybe sex is back. You know, gen Z may not
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: be having it, but they are very much well women
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: anyway are watching it. Between that heated rivals.
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  Speaker 3: They're also reading it. They're reading about sex in romanticy
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: kind of novels and other fiction that women are driving,
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: you know. So yeah, there's a moment here. Maybe we
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: should all quit our jobs and become six.
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 2: I think maybe television has finally realized that fifty percent
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: of the audience are women, and maybe we should start
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: making things for them.
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  Speaker 4: But all such, if it's fun, it's just fun to watch,
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: you know, it's just that's what TV's. It's entertainment, it's escape.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: I came across Julie Cooper's work when I was a teenager,
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: and she was probably one of the first adult books
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: that I read was her nineteen seventy nine book Class,
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: which happened to be on my parents' shelfon suburban home
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: and it was a brutal takedown of the British class system,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: making fun of the aristocracy but also making a lot
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: of fun of the working class and the middle class.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: She created caricatures of those groups and then mercilessly roasted
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: each of them in a way that I feel that
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: was intrinsically British. You know, she made fun of working
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: class sensibilities and of the aristocracy. She was definitely obviously
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: favoring the upper classes, and people like Camilla Parker Bowles,
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: you know, completely loved it, clearly. But the class is
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: the other part of the rival story, isn't it. It
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: is very much about class.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, But I think that's what the Britain do
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: so well in any form of entertainment, is they make
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: fun of themselves, like Americans don't do that very well.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: You look at Ricky Gervais in the office and I
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: think the fact that she skews everybody equally. But I
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: think the theme, if for one of a better word
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: of rivals is that they are all awful. The wives
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: are miserable, the husbands are horrible, the politicians are corrupt,
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: the journalists are all alcoholics. Like it's like it's all fabulous,
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: but they're not particularly happy. But it's just in a
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: slightly more fun way than say, White Lotus.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: White Lotus is supposed to be fine. It's supposed to
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: be a comedy. Yeah, there are funny moments. It's a
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: sort of murder mystery. Really, each time I.
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: Think White Lotus, you just don't like the characters at all.
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: Maybe it's one of those things because it's a television
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: show and not a book. I'm not exactly sure. But
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: in Rivals, you still are sympathetic to all the characters.
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: You still love them, even in their kind of most evilness.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: I think Mike White is an extraordinarily talented writer, but
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: he's a bit more sneering, as Jilly Kimmer writes, with
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: like a like a generosity of spirit. She's like, these
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: people are abhorrent, but I love them, yes, and you
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: will love them.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: The rich people in White Loaders are all revolting, and
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: they all get their come up and start day. Yes.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: And it's the staff, the kind of servants. You get
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: the sympathetic storylines and we care about them all. Is
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: it a bit lazy? Do you think? In White Loaders?
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: I don't want to say it's lazy because I guess
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: that's just what Mike White cares about. And perhaps he
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: was a person that felt a bit trodden on and
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: sympathizers with those people more. Whereas you know Jilly Keepers
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: from the upper crost.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: Yes, so she can make fun of it. She's part
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: of it. Yeah. Yeah, Rivals is coming back, and you've
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: been getting some insights into what's coming.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, I've seen the first three extraordinary episodes.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Are we still in the television station? What's happening?
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: We're still in the television So this is no spoiler
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: to say, but we left David Tennant's Tony batten Ker
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: bleeding on the floor after being whacked on the head
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: by the television producer camera and at the cook.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: Well, you will never let that man touch you again.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: He survives.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Spoiler.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm late, dy, I'm a terrible headache.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: We need Rivals, Okay.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: So he is now held bent on taking down Rupert
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Campbell Black at the nineteen eighty seven general election, and that.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Is you know, that's basically the plot. We don't watch
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Rivals for the plot.
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: So much polyesterone, it's just fabulous.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, And we also have the addition of the actor
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Rupert Everett.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: I won't spoiler his character, but he is just like
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: the perfect actor for the Chili keeper.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: He really is high camp. He was born for that.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Yep, he's looking wonderfully leathered as well.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: That's truly.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Do you think Rival season two will be as successful
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: as the first season?
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, It's just it is perfect television. It is fun.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: It is like truly a one of one television show.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: There is nothing else out there like it.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: Can't wait, especially because Jordie, I feel like your tastes
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: are generally much more high brow than mine. So I
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: love the fact that we're all loving the naked buttocks
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: of Rivals just as much as each other. We're reason
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: to live.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Human.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Melanda and Jordie, thank you very much. Thank you, Clatt.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: Milanda Bout is The Australian's Culture editor and Jordie Gray
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: is our entertainment writer. This episode of the Front was
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: hosted by me Claire Harvey, produced by Christin Amiot and
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: edited by Leah Tamaglou. Thanks for joining us on the
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Front this week. Our team also includes Tiffanity, Mac, Joshua
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: Burton and Jasper League, who also composed our music,