Bonkbuster Rivals makes Footballers’ Wives look like The Wire – if you want to see what 80s was like, watch Bullseye

AS everyone has already noticed, but hardly anyone has dared to say, there is a very obvious issue with Rivals’ show-jumping anti-hero Rupert Campbell-Black, who is, allegedly “the handsomest man in England.”

He’s not.

Nor is he anything like it, unless England’s gene pool has shrunk to the size of Hickstead’s water jump overnight.

In a very flattering light, he looks a bit like Gareth Bale.

In an unflattering one, he’s Robbie Rotten from Lazy Town, covered in about 20 layers of Creosote.

Yet still women, men, waiters, dogs and horses all swoon in his presence and yelp with excitement about his “ten inches”.

A claim which, following his full-frontal game of tennis with Emily Atack’s Sarah Stratton character, really should come with a magazine advert-style disclaimer: “Not actual size.”

These, however, are the least of the problems with the ­Disney+ version of Jilly ­Cooper’s bonkbuster novel, which seems to have caused a collective brain fart among Britain’s ironic/sarcastic community who’ve hailed it as a “joyful,” “playful,” “tongue- in-cheek” antidote to all the ills of prudish Britain, but clearly haven’t watched it as far as episode five’s horrific rape scene or noticed that it’s also a turgid pile of cack that makes Footballers’ Wives look like The Wire.

It’s not a near miss, for me, either. Rivals fails on every level — from the simple fact that no one used “bellend” as an insult in 1986, to the ­central plotline where we have a three-way tussle to win the franchise of a regional ITV network.

And if you found yourself losing interest in that storyline halfway through my explanation, don’t be too hard on yourself. So did the three main actors: Aidan Turner, who plays a psychopathic left-wing chat show host called Declan O’Hara, Alex Hassell, who’s Rupert Campbell-Black, the handsomest man in his own panic room, and David Tennant who gets caught between Dr Who and Davros trying to work out network boss Lord Tony Baddingham and whether Rivals is a ­comedy or a drama.

That’s possibly the reason why the unwitting star of the show, hiding beneath a Cliff Richard wig, is Danny Dyer who’s listed in the credits as multi-millionaire businessman “Freddie Jones” but, as always, is really just playing Danny Dyer and provides the highlight of the series dancing to The Birdie Song in episode one.

The show’s OTT soundtrack doesn’t end there, I should warn you. It can’t. Chris de Burgh, Robert Palmer, Pat Benatar and the rest are often the only thing maintaining the pretence Rivals is set 40 years ago.

A facade that’s collapsed completely by the time of ­episode six’s Spanish jaunt, when I think the costume department must have been fogbound at Gatwick.

Mind you, even if their truck had made it through customs at Malaga airport, it’s unlikely I would’ve warmed to Rivals.

For, despite all the “tongue-in-cheek” broadsheet blah, there is a suffocating and inappropriate air of political correctness that hangs over this show.

Indeed, there’s not a single episode that passes without at least one person being reprimanded for racism, sexism or homophobia. Britain’s empire gets in the neck as well.

The real Eighties ghost that no modern dramatist can exorcise, though, is Margaret Thatcher.

An impossible target to hit, given history will always record that she won three straight elections, but television cannot ever stop ­trying.

The Crown, Sherwood and It’s A Sin have all had a crack and so does Rivals as Declan O’Hara breaks off an attempt to lure “Thatcher” on to his chat show to shout: “She’s selling the state off to the highest bidder. She’s ­turning us into a country of haves and have-nots.”

Any credibility it ever had is shot, for me, after that and several other student outbursts.

Ally Ross

Radical political consciences soothed, Rivals then has to try and crank through five gears, get back to the sex and allow Rupert to deliver the line: “God woman, you’ve got me as hard as the Rock of Gibraltar,” with any sort of idea it “doesn’t take itself seriously” still intact.

A forlorn task.

Any credibility it ever had is shot, for me, after that and several other student outbursts. Although, I have to acknowledge many ­others love this show unconditionally.

Why? Well, cynically speaking, I think it’s either because claiming you like Rivals has become shorthand for saying, “I too have a sense of fun” (but haven’t watched it), or it’s more of a reflection on the rest of the morbid, procedural dross infecting television.

Either way . . . 

If you want to see what the 1980s was really like, watch Bullseye. If you want to see what TV people think the 1980s should’ve been like, watch Rivals.

And that’s as true as the fact Rupert Campbell-Black is the handsomest man in Whipsnade zoo’s bison enclosure.

Bully hits the target

WHEN there’s nothing good left to watch on the telly, we all retreat into our default settings.

Mine is Challenge TV, where you’ll find some gloriously unedited Bullseye repeats.

Specifically series three, episode 18. A solid gold classic, with special guest Lionel Blair, from 1983, which hits the ground running when Jim Bowen is confronted by a female contestant called Jenny who’s a big fan of Ivan Lendl.

“There are a lot of good Czech tennis players, aren’t there,” says Jim, warming to the theme.

“There’s that Hana ­Mandlikova. Ooh, I wouldn’t mind that Czech bouncing on me.”

An observation that’d get him sacked now, but if your first instinct is to laugh it’ll put you in the right mood for what ­follows when Jim ­introduces Jenny’s darts-throwing partner.

“Right, your name’s Dick Slow?”

“Yes.” (Pause)

“I’ve got that the right way round then?”

None of it would be quite as funny, obviously, if television and the ­country hadn’t been engulfed by a monstrous, creeping, po-faced form of political correctness during the intervening four decades.

But it has, and so all of the above is simply a reminder that Bullseye remains the greatest game show of all time and ITV’s out of its tiny one-eyed mind if it thinks it can reproduce that magic, with Freddie ­Flintoff, in 2024.

(Bullseye, Challenge TV, Friday, 5pm).

TV Gold

SIR DEREK JACOBI having the time of his life on BBC1’s ­Ludwig, 2024’s best new ­mainstream drama.

Marisa Abela giving a ­performance so astonishingly good, on BBC1’s Industry, it would’ve guaranteed a Bafta in the days when those awards were still based on merit.

Ted the dog stealing absolutely every scene on BBC2’s sublime Mortimer And Whitehouse: Gone Fishing.

The legendary Fred Dinenage remaining TV’s ultimate professional on Britain’s Most Evil ­Killers (Sky Prime).

And Chris McCausland’s insanely moving waltz to You’ll Never Walk Alone, with the ­brilliant Dianne Buswell, on Strictly.

A dance which should help propel him to ­Glitterball glory, just so long as he doesn’t get too carried away with his heckling.

Lookalike of the week

THIS week’s winner is Mick Hucknall, as snogged by Emma off Big Brother, and Zoot from The Muppets. Sent in by ­Robert Morgan, of Edinburgh.

ODDEST sub- title of the week? The Riccardo Calafiori feature on Saturday’s Football Focus, where an Italian Arsenal fan saying, “You have someone who comes from where he comes from” was transformed into “Bulimic comes from where he comes from.”
Which is weird, ‘cos I thought Bulimic played for Hajduk Split.