Rivals (Disney+)
Mr Loverman (BBC One) | iPlayer
Life and Death in Gaza (BBC Two) | iPlayer
So Long, Marianne (ITVX) | itv.com
A “hot Tory” may be hard to imagine right now, what with the Conservative party having all the electoral allure of greying undies. Nevertheless, in Rivals (Disney+), a hot Tory is what you get. The opening scene of Dominic Treadwell-Collins and Laura Wade’s eight-part adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s 1988 “bonkbuster” is of mile high club sex in the loos of supersonic airliner Concorde. Swaggering hero, former showjumper and Tory minister for sport Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell channelling Hugh Grant levels of aristo-totty rakishness), shags a journalist to the thumping beat of Robert Palmer’s Addicted to Love.
Just as 80s motifs abound (clacker balls, Thatcher, mentions of Jimmy Savile), sex is everywhere in Rivals’ moneyed fictional Rutshire. But it’s a specific Cooper-ish sex: energetic, unapologetic, extramarital; derrières wobbling like birthday party jellies. Naked tennis. Piano sex. Full-on rutting montages recalling an aged-up Sex Education reeking of CK One (but none of your 21st-century nastiness such as throttling). It’s also very British sex, as in slightly chaotic and incompetent. Everyone in Rivals carries on like soft porn stars (paid by the gasp and the thrust), but only toff Lothario-in-chief Rupert looks as if he’s any good at it.
Elsewhere, with a heaving, starry cast, it’s a comedy of backstabbing media manners. Upstart TV channel Corinium is run by Rupert’s arch-rival, Tony (David Tennant on brilliantly venal form), who’s having an affair with his producer Cameron (Nafessa Williams). Tony poaches Parkinson-esque interviewer Declan (Aidan Turner), who moves his family, including sexually overheated wife Maud (Victoria Smurfit) to Rutshire. Their daughter, Taggie (Bella Maclean), is engaged in an on-off flirtation with Rupert in a sanitised version of their age-gap amour (though he sticks his hand up her skirt).
Rivals is also about class: not since Brideshead has there been such dribbling over toffs (the riding gear, the stately piles). Representing new money, there’s Danny Dyer’s Freddie. With Lisa McGrillis as his wife, Valerie, and a slow-burn connection with a (Cooper-proxy) “dirty books” author Lizzie Vereker (Katherine Parkinson), Dyer imbues Freddie with such sweetness and emotional intelligence, he damn near steals the show.
Downsides? As per, it turns out I’m too common and vegetarian to be anything but stonily unamused by hunting/pheasant-shooting scenes. There’s also a palpable energy slump in later episodes, as Corinium power plays bang on too long. Still, overall, Rivals is big, bold, witty and shameless. Eighties panto season is upon us.
How do you like your homophobia? Nathaniel Price’s eight-part BBC One drama Mr Loverman, directed by Hong Khaou and adapted from Bernardine Evaristo’s novel (her first screen adaptation), has the nerve and skill to deliver it three ways: generally, from society; specifically (“batty man”), from Jamaican culture; and internalised.
At nearly 75 years old, dapper, effervescent Barrington (Lennie James) is a heavily closeted gay Antiguan living in Hackney, east London. Still deeply involved with his love from youth, Morris (Ariyon Bakare), he has a toxic relationship with his longsuffering wife, Carmel (Sharon D Clarke), with whom he has two adult daughters (played by Tamara Lawrance and Sharlene Whyte).
Barrington can be selfish and vile to Carmel (“Behold, the ice queen returneth”). Although his ground-down wife is unaware he’s gay (she thinks he is unfaithful with a woman), she and her church group come out with heavy-duty homophobia and some very ripe language (unprintable here) about women who cheat with husbands. Barrington clearly feels conflicted about his sexuality (“poofters”). Just as he is deceiving his wife, he’s also messed Morris about for decades, never following through on leaving Carmel.
With some scenes set in Antigua, Mr Loverman starts out particularly vivid and strong, its 30-minute episodes snapping along. Throughout, there are stunning performances, particularly from James and Clarke, who are locked in a relationship death spiral that’s as relentless as it is loveless. It’s a shame, then, that halfway through, the show becomes repetitive, orbiting around the same points and moods. Despite that, it’s very much worth your time.
Natasha Cox’s BBC Two documentary Life and Death in Gaza focuses on four ordinary Palestinians as they struggle to survive Israel’s retaliatory bombing, and its huge death toll, after the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023.
Khalid is a physiotherapist whose clinic is destroyed (he tries to go on serving as a medic for wounded children). Adam is trying to get himself and his sisters across the Egyptian border before it closes. Aya is a student unable to take up her place at an Italian university because she is constantly displaced, ending up in a tent city. When we first meet Aseel she is heavily pregnant with her second daughter, who, when born, she sees as a symbol of hope.
Although, occasionally, information appears on screen, the subjects themselves don’t directly mention Hamas or Israel, keeping close to the stories of their personal worlds. As is becoming routine, footage is filmed on phones, and much of it is intense: bombs exploding at a distance; buildings shaking; streets full of people moving to the next safe place. In the midst of all this, the occasional images of past life in Gaza (bustling parks, colourful markets) are horribly poignant. In common with other documentaries emerging from the conflict, the result is at once powerful, absorbing and almost unbearable to watch.
Over on ITVX, Ingeborg Klyve and Tony Wood’s new eight-part drama, So Long, Marianne. Named after the Leonard Cohen song, it details the love affair between Cohen (Alex Wolff from Oppenheimer) and his Norwegian muse, Marianne Ihlen (Thea Sofie Loch Naess), beginning in 1960 on the Greek island of Hydra, where Cohen joins an artistic commune.
So Long, Marianne is passionate and packed with talent (Anna Torv, Noah Taylor, Peter Stormare) as well as Cohen’s music (the programme-makers got permission to use his songs). It employs black and white for the Canadian’s miserable early poet days working in his uncle’s factory, switching to vibrant colour for the beauty of Greece.
The idea of a muse is now viewed as outdated, but Marianne is presented as her own person, while the young Cohen has already struggled with depression (“I’m not going to kill myself in America. It would be very unbecoming of me”). Only the first episode was available for preview, but this is intriguing: an arty curio about beautiful, impossible people from bygone times.
Star ratings (out of five)
Rivals ★★★★
Mr Loverman ★★★
Life and Death in Gaza ★★★★
So Long, Marianne ★★★
What else I’m watching
The Man Who Definitely Didn’t Steal Hollywood
(BBC Two)
This documentary about financier Giancarlo Parretti, who bought Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in Hollywood in 1990, only for everything to erupt in lawsuits and FBI investigations, is La La Land at its most jaw-dropping.
The Devil’s Hour
(Amazon Prime Video)
Peter Capaldi and Jessica Raine return in the second instalment of the crime series with the supernatural twist. Histrionic, but also daring and offbeat.
Michael Mosley – Just One Thing
(BBC One)
Michael Mosley’s final TV outing (it was recorded just before his death). With his signature geniality, he persuades people to include small health tweaks, such as cold showers, into their daily routines.
