If you have Disney+, the new TV series adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s book Rivals is wonderful fun. Better still read the book first, but either way, give it a try!

Set in the 1980s, it features Jilly’s hero Rupert Campbell-Black finally falling in love with a woman half his age, against the backdrop of a bitterly-fought battle to run a TV network in the UK.

There are some changes made, mostly in the second half of the series to prepare for a possible second series. But the first half is very true to the book, with fairly good casting. Rupert isn’t blond but actor Alex Hassell captures his smooth, roguish charm and arrogance, increasingly softened by his feelings for Taggie.

It also features one of the most emotionally, romantically and erotically intense scenes I’ve ever seen on TV, when the lead couple dance for the first time to Chris de Burgh’s “Lady in Red”. There’s a lot of sex and nudity in the series (full frontal Rupert in the infamous naked tennis scene) but it’s mostly played for laughs.

It’s Rupert and Taggie, fully clothed, in a roomful of people where the heat really rises.

Rivals is set in the 1980s and the production is very true to that. There are uncomfortable moments and things that wouldn’t be so acceptable today. But it’s a credit to the producers that they didn’t try to sanitise that era. It makes Rupert’s redemption arc more meaningful and it also creates more empathy for the characters (women, gay men) affected by the less enlightened mores of previous decades.