One of the many reasons that we all fell for the television adaptation of Rivals was the casting, wasn’t it?
asserted
it → fall → Rivals
She has long, dark, tangled hair and is wearing baggy trousers with one hem held up by a safety pin, which is also very Taggie, because in the books, the character has a natural beauty, but is also scruffy, undone and never that close to a hairbrush.
asserted
character → have → hairbrush
“I think I’m really, really like her in ways that I probably wouldn’t want to admit,” says Maclean, screwing up her face as if we’re in a confessional.
asserted
we → think → confessional
“She’s really dorky and I’m …”
asserted
I → ’ → ?
Just, like … I can be quite awkward, and I’m really clumsy.”
asserted
I → ’m → ?
“Can you cook?” I ask, thinking of Taggie’s shepherd’s pies and devilled eggs.
asserted
I → cook → pies
“I love cooking, but it doesn’t mean I’m any good at it,” she says with Taggie-ish modesty.
asserted
she → love → modesty
“And I’m a massive dog person.”
asserted
I → ’m → ?
Yes, yes, she played kindly riding instructor Jem in the final series of Sex Education in 2023, but Rivals is the biggie, the part that means the 28-year-old now gets recognised and stopped on the streets of North London, where she lives.
asserted
she → play → London
The show, released towards the end of 2024, was a massive, joyful, shagtastic hit.
asserted
show → release → 2024
It notched up orgasmic reviews and bagged multiple awards and nominations, including a Bafta nod for the famous nude tennis scene.
asserted
It → notch → scene
Many of us, in these troubled times, have been enraptured by the sheer joy and escapism of the series, the unrestrained hilarity of the bonking and bad behaviour, its lack of finger-wagging political correctness, the 1980s music, the taffeta and the shoulder pads.
asserted
Many → enrapture → correctness
Sadly, for much of the filming of the second season, there was one very notable absence: Dame Jilly Cooper herself, author of Rivals as well as dozens of other adored books, which have sold more than 11 million copies in the UK alone.
asserted
which → be → UK
She died in October last year, when shooting for season two had already started; having been such a presence on set for the first season, she was clearly enormously missed by the cast.
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she → die → cast
“It makes me emotional,” says Maclean, dipping her head.
asserted
Maclean → make → head
“She was the person steering the ship.
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She → steer → ship
She was a goddess, a guardian angel watching over all of us in this mammoth thing, and she had such a wonderfully relaxed, positive energy, so you always felt held when she was around.
asserted
she → watch → energy
It was really, really surreal, and it didn’t feel real for a long time.”
asserted
it → feel → time
Despite the millions of sales, Cooper was long sneered at for writing what many considered to be lowbrow potboilers – and yet her books are up there with Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope in terms of their wry and sharp-eyed observations about human behaviour.
asserted
books → sneer → behaviour
Dominic Treadwell-Collins, the determined producer and writer who adapted Rivals, spent two decades pitching her work to television executives, but kept being knocked back because it was deemed unfashionable.
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it → adapt → executives
It was only after a five-hour lunch with Cooper and encouraging conversations with Disney that it swung into action.
asserted
it → swing → action
Maclean pulls off the English rose act very convincingly, given that she started out life as an American.
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she → pull → American
She was born in New York City to British parents who worked in the art world, and lived there until she was 10, when the family moved to the UK.
asserted
family → bear → UK
She had an American accent, although this soon wore off at school – first in Sussex, and then at boarding school, which wasn’t an enormous success because she didn’t like boarding.
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she → have → boarding
Why did her parents send Maclean and her older twin sisters away?
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parents → send → Maclean
“I think they just couldn’t believe we got into such a good school.”
asserted
we → think → school
Luckily, salvation came in the form of a London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art teacher who encouraged her nascent acting skills, and soon she’d persuaded the staff to allow her up to London at weekends for Junior Guildhall classes, missing Saturday lessons.
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she → come → lessons
Acting made up for the misery of school.
asserted
Acting → make → school
“I just found it really exhilarating, and a form of escapism.
asserted
it → find → escapism
I have always felt a lot, especially when younger … and I didn’t understand what the feelings were, so I think that’s why I kept going back to acting, as a way of experiencing things that I might not be able to express in my own life.”
uncertain
I → feel → life
Maclean grins self-consciously from under her fringe, dyed dark chestnut so she could avoid the thick wig she wore for the first series of Rivals.
uncertain
she → grin → Rivals
“I did not know this was turning into a therapy session.”
asserted
this → know → session
She left school and graduated from Junior Guildhall to Guildhall proper, playing Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Helen of Troy in The Trojan Women, among other roles, although this three-year spell was also difficult at times.
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spell → leave → times
It’s like shoving a mirror in your face, and you realise a lot about yourself and your flaws.
asserted
you → ’ → yourself
I don’t know if I was any good, and still don’t know if I’m any good at acting,” she says (another Taggie-esque moment of self-deprecation), “but it was the most valuable time.
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it → know → deprecation
Various roles followed after drama school – in a short film about drag, in a revival of Spring Awakening directed by Rupert Goold at the Almeida theatre, in Silent Witness as a prescription-drug-addled teenager.
asserted
roles → follow → teenager
Then came her first major screen role, in Netflix’s Sex Education, and after that, Rivals.
asserted
role → come → Rivals
Jilly Cooper’s books – those perky, jodhpur-clad bottoms – were familiar from her mother’s bookshelves, but Maclean had never picked one up.
asserted
Maclean → clothe → one
On reading the script, she liked Taggie’s moral backbone (among a cast of shaggers and boozers, Taggie’s by far the most virtuous character), but she also knew that the part needed updating for a modern audience: “making her less of a wallflower, giving her more agency”.
asserted
her → read → agency
A Gen Z-er picking up one of those bonkbusters today might be surprised by the blunt language.
uncertain
er → pick → language
…and 27 more, not listed.
The Aporia
