Jilly’s Rivals, where we discuss the ending of episode 8 SO obviously there are SPOILERS

[TheSecondMrsCampbellBlack]

Omg

My SIL has watched it.
Also my almost 70 year old mum 😮

I think the idea that it’s been left open atm in case David Tenant doesn’t want to or can’t return for season two is very valid. Out of all the cast he’s probably the most likely to have other offers/projects. I agree there’s not much left of Rivals left to cover for a whole second season so wrapping that up and moving onto Polo in the same season would work.

What is the secret with Perdita? I haven't read Polo and it seems a difficult book to get hold of at the moment so could anyone explain?

Perdita is a horrible but beautiful girl who was born after a fling with someone her mum, daisy ((dirty mini, forgetful artist)) doesn't remember (so any guesses??!) when daisy was a teenager.

Perdita also happens to be a phenomenal rider and excellent polo player but has no money so tries to work her way up as one of the few female professional polo players. Eventually she and her dad find and then acknowledge each other and she is then rich and falls in love with a lovely American polo player called Luke who is very calm and kind.

Polo is actually my favourite JC book.

Polo would be great but I imagine it would be very difficult to film. There's so many characters and locations and so many horses! In fact there's a whole bit in the book about how hard polo (the game!) would be to televise.

I hope lord b isn't dead, it's such a huge departure and part of the pleasure of the book is venturer beating Tony, not Corinium, to the franchise.

I used to be in love with Ricky, then read Polo again after years and realised that it’s all about Luke, so that would be impossible casting. Luke is just the dream man.

No idea how they’ll string out another 8 episodes but I imagine with some fluffing they can do it. My guess is that Tony appearing to be so hurt is just the cliffhanger and he’ll be back.

Katherine Parkinson and Danny Dyer😍 I’d always read people saying quite how amazing an actress KP is but had never really seen it, but now I get it. She absolutely walked away with the whole show.

Thanks @CitrineRaindropPhoenix

Are we allowed to discuss the Polo storyline here, or would that count as different "spoilers"?!

Rivals was economically made. Scenes set up in the house or garden. It was a risk because no-one knew if it would be a success . Because I think it has been, worldwide sales to come. Polo should have a larger budget. I hope so

What made rivals so good was they made Lizzie vereker the narrator (they even got her to say some of coopers lyrical waxing about the countryside) there's no one in polo that could do it -unless they made daisy less downtrodden

@Notonthestairs I have spent as long thinking about it! Sarah's pregnancy was never a thing in the books, she was just discarded by Rupert and had to stay with Paul, disillusioned by being an MP's wife and a not attractive MP at that!

Surely they can't just KILL OFF TONY?! I'd be really shocked if they did.

Oh I know! And Janey! They should be in it, Billy is head of sport fgs!

Agree re beating Tony. It's Good (Venturer) winning over bad (Corinium and its ram, ha ha)

Yeah I reckon we can! Go for it (not that it's my decision, I just started the thread)

We also haven't had Beattie getting her revenge on Rupert yet.

Whoever said you start off liking Ricky when you read the books as a teenager or young adult and then re-read it and realise Luke is the swoony one, I agree. Ricky isn't very nice at all until he falls for Daisy and then he becomes nicer. See, all he needed was the love of a good woman, one nicer than that harlot Chessie 😂

OK, here's my take: Huge chunks of Polo are too.... "problematic" for a feel-good bonkbuster. Perdita is far too young, Dommie and Seb are awful (one of them actually tricks his brother's girlfriend into shagging him, because apparently anything with a pulse is fair game) Red is a sadistic narcissist with no redeeming features other than being good looking.

After what happened with Will, I never felt that Ricky was redeemable as a likeable character. And the book seems to lay a lot of that blame on Chessie for "goading" him, which is not very 2024.

Luke is obviously the ultimate good guy but I've never felt that Perdita deserved him. I know she had her problems, which shaped a lot of her behaviour, but she's fundamentally selfish and unpleasant.

I'm reading Polo at the moment. I love Rivals but think I was too cool for Jilly (in my student head) by the time Polo came out.

Daisy doesn't know who Perdita's father is as she was off her face at an orgy in the book but I guess they can change that!

It's quite hard to picture the second half of Rivals without Tony as the Maud storyline is so key. We need more of it all though so I'm happy with whatever they decide to do.

Agree with the comments about Ricky & Luke. They'd also have to make Perdita nicer as she's an absolute twat in the book. But I guess they managed that with Cameron.

I can't believe they've killed Tony off - the rest of the story just wouldn't make sense otherwise. We need the whole plot line with Maud betraying Declan and you can't have that without Tony. I think they've just made it look like he might be dead for cliffhanger purposes. There is definitely not enough of Rivals left for a whole second series (unless they pad it out and add original storylines), so my guess is they are planning to incorporate Polo in some way. I don't think all the Polo characters being awful is an impediment - most of the Rivals characters are pretty terrible people and it hasn't put anyone off watching!

LOVED the first half - the Lady in Red dance was one of the hottest things ever - and I get why they did the second half the way they did (to adumbrate a second series) but yeah, it's not as good as the book ending which is a complete and perfect story and ending.

Given the vast cost involved in filming something like Polo with all the horses, I suspect a second series will be a mishmash of the Rupert's children/Cameron/Taggie plotline from Rivals and bits of Polo, plus new plotlines. But it's going to be a very different kind of relationship tension since they've both declared themselves.

I expected them to age Taggie up for Rivals (which they did) but it was interesting that Alex Hassell looks considerably older than 38, though that gave back some of the edge to the age-gap relationship. I thought the Valerie character was too Debbie McGee, she should be more of a younger Hyacinth Bucket type, but I can see why they did that for a modern audience/US audience as it makes the class thing a bit more obvious. The actress did a really good job with it, it just wasn't written like the book character.

Most of the casting was fabulous. The only one who didn't work for me was David Tennant. He's usually smooth and flawless with an English accent (I was quite surprised when I first heard him interviewed and realised his normal accent was Scottish) but he frequently sounded weird and strained in this. Not sure what was going on with that.

What if we just had the perdita and the miscarriage bits from polo and then had some of the Harriet/Imogen etc stories to pad it out?

So bas could lock eyes with Imogen -try to seduce her but she ends up falling for declans younger brother mat who is a journalist

I also don’t think they’ve killed Tony off as he’s too key to the rest of Rivals. I am disappointed that what we got wasn’t the whole book (as that was what everyone was expecting until very recently) although pleased if it means we get more!

I also agree that there’s not really enough left in Rivals to make a full second series.

Incorporating Polo is going to be tricky though because while the time periods of both books overlap there’s very little overlap with the characters - Polo is an almost completely new set. I’m struggling therefore to see how they’ll incorporate both without substantially changing Polo.

I would like to see them do a proper separate adaptation of Polo but I know that would be very hard/expensive to do because of all the horses/polo matches/exotic locations.

I suspect that others are right about us getting a sort of mishmash of Rivals and Polo for series 2.

I wonder what they would do after that though? Would they go on to just make more series using the Rivals/Polo characters and make up storylines? On the one hand - great, more of these brilliant characters/actors. On the other hand - I just want to see proper adaptations of all the books (up to Score! anyway, not fussed after that).

I wonder if it was deliberate because he was playing someone who was putting on an accent that wasn't the one he was born with? I loved the way the writers occasionally made the character slip up, like when he's accepting the award and says 'lounge', then quickly corrects himself to 'sitting room'. That was a very, very Jilly detail.

Oooh the conversations moved on to speculation about polo incorporating. I really must read polo again now. DH was in a charity book shop yesterday I sent him on a mission to find some JC books, alas none there.

I’d love a short adaption of Imogen, I love that story. Or woven in to the next series, I like your idea @drwitch

My DSis is watching and a lifelong friend who used to tease me about reading JC books has too 😂

Now lost on what to watch next.

Quick q - did you say Hamilton Terrace? In St John’s Wood?

if so, do they film there or re they using another city to sub as London?