David Tennant says he jumped at the chance to star in Jilly Cooper’s 1980s bonkbuster - because his wife said it would be “sensational”.
The former star said she was thrilled when the first script arrived. “I told Georgia and she was convinced that this was something I had to be involved with,” he explains. “She said, ‘This series is going to be huge. This is going to be exactly what the country needs, exactly what the needs.’
“She knew the books from her teenage years, as I understand, and knew that this was going to make sensational television.”
He duly accepted the role of Lord Tony Baddingham, one of the show’s main villains and was delighted when Georgia eventually got to watch the episodes, and loved them.
“Her reaction was so positive and so joyous,” he says. “I know when she's being genuine.”
Tony is a grammar school boy with a chip on his shoulder about not being a proper toff. His character runs a regional TV station facing franchise renewal and has a dependable upper-crust wife, played by Sherwood’s Claire Rushbrook, but is also having a very steamy affair with the new TV executive he’s lured over from New York (Nafessa Williams).
The actor, 53, argues that poor old Tony is just horribly misunderstood. “From the inside, no character believes they're a villain, do they? I think Tony's motivations are very clear. He's very easy to understand in many ways. Tony sees himself as hard done by and someone who's just struggling to survive and to win.”
While he can remember the 80s quite clearly, Tennant says that filming Rivals felt very much like being on a period drama. “It's almost like being on the set of a Dickens novel,” he muses. “The 80s seems quite recent history to me, but once you start recreating that world, you realise it's actually very different. That’s wonderful fun to film - to be on a time capsule of a set is glorious.”
As the Doctor he got to time-travel all over the place in the TARDIS but Tennant says he loved spending time in the 80s, not least because of the music. “When you're a teenager at the time, a lot of it, however good it is, is uncool, and therefore you're not really allowed to like it,” he says. “Whereas now, as a jaded 53-year-old, I can just go, ‘Oh, do you know what I loved? A-ha’.”
And what else did he love? “I didn't have to ride a horse, which was a mercy, because I'm a little bit allergic.”
Tennant admits that filming the incredibly saucy bedroom scenes was a bit awkward but he felt there was safety in numbers thanks to the huge number of them. Barely any of the cast don’t end up getting involved in one way or another.
“I mean, sex scenes are never comfortable, you know? But again, because everyone was in the same boat, there was a lot of discussion about, ‘When are you doing that scene?’ and ‘Have you done that yet?’
He believes it’s fine for Rivals to be labelled a “bonkbuster” - it’s full of sex at the end of the day - but only if it’s said with due respect for what Dame Jilly achieved with the Rutshire Chronicles. “There are a generation of readers who were so influenced by her, and for whom these novels meant so much, it means that that writing is obviously better than some would have you believe,” he says. “The way she writes character is timeless, and people having sex is pretty timeless. So these books have been tenacious for a reason.”
The actor says an early scene where the pathologically competitive Tony leaps from his helicopter onto the croquet lawn is his favourite career moment so far.
“That hole-in-one, I would like you to know, was probably the greatest day of my professional life,” he laughs. Instructed by the director to “whack it” from 30 feet away he was told the cameras would keep running until he managed it. “I thought the crew are gonna hate me by take 402,” he remembers. “And I nailed it on take four. I've never felt more pleased with myself than that moment. I felt like a sporting God.”
All episodes of Rivals streams on Disney+ from October 18
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