Forget Rupert Campbell-Black – this is the hottest thing about Rivals

Danny Dyer and Katherine Parkinson’s simmering love story are the unexpected heart that makes Jilly Cooper’s new adaptation more than just a shallow bonk-fest, writes Helen Coffey

I was expecting to like Rivals, Disney+’s new steamy eight-episode adaptation of the classic Jilly Cooper novel. With Eighties hairstyles and soundtrack, an all-star cast and more bonking than you can shake a stick (or, should I say, “rock-hard member”) at, what’s not to like? What I definitely wasn’t expecting, however, was to find myself swooning over Danny Dyer. But swoon I did.

In a completely unprecedented turn of events, it was the ex-EastEnders actor – amid an ensemble cast stuffed full of thinking women’s crumpets – who set pulses racing in the role of straight-talking, salt-of-the-earth, boy-dun-good tech magnate Freddie Jones.

Forget David Tennant (the dastardly Lord Baddingham), Aidan Turner (the tenacious rottweiler of a journalist Declan O’Hara) and Alex Hassell (cartoonishly sexy rake Rupert Campbell-Black) – Dyer’s gruff brand of charm sparked a thousand WhatsApp chats as the nation succumbed to what can only be described as “Freddie Fever”.

“It’s all I’m talking to people about,” one friend messaged me frantically over the weekend. “The quiet love and respect of Danny Dyer and how wholesome that is. We don’t want bad boys; we just want Danny Dyer! (Also DD is everyone’s w*** fantasy now).” I never thought I’d be reading these words, let alone agreeing with them. But credit where credit’s due.

“I love a ladder – stairway to heaven and all that,” he mutters at one point to sexually frustrated romance novelist Lizzie Vereker, played by Katherine Parkinson, in reference to the ladder in her tights. “Have you got any idea how f***ing beautiful you are?” he says at another. Her vapid fop of a husband, James Vereker (Oliver Chris), is too busy preening and presenting a daytime TV show to perform his marital duties. At Freddie’s words, she melts; we all melt with her.

Dyer and Parkinson are an unlikely pairing – one whose languid, simmering journey towards infidelity sounds, on paper, like the least sexy thing about a show bursting at the seams with adultery, betrayal and naked tennis matches. Why would anyone be on the edge of their seat to find out whether a man frequently typecast as hooligans and criminals and a character actor best known for her role as Jen Barber in The IT Crowd are going to finally rip each other’s clothes off? Yet their understated subplot (well, understated for a show in which the opening scene consists of Campbell-Black renewing his mile-high club membership) is the heart of the entire series. It’s the believable backbone, providing a much-needed injection of emotional investment that grounds the rest of this hugely entertaining shag-fest in something approaching reality.

Their slow-burn romance is perhaps so beguiling because it is slow, set in a fictional Cotswolds world where people need do no more than glance at each other before dropping trow and getting down and dirty. If desire is all about wanting and not having, then Freddie and Lizzie are its epitome; they find themselves first thrown and then drawn together at shoots and dinners and garden parties, creating a two-person bubble of warmth and intimacy whenever they meet before it’s abruptly popped by one of their deeply unlikeable spouses.

Lizzie Vereker (Katherine Parkinson) and Freddie Jones (Danny Dyer) are the believable backbone of new series ‘Rivals’ (Disney Plus)

In spite – or perhaps because – of being rooted in simplicity, this dynamic is several hundred degrees hotter than Lord Baddingham’s torrid affair or Campbell-Black’s fast-paced bed-hopping. Freddie and Lizzie bond over their shared love of sweet treats, secretly snaffling a bar of Cadbury’s or a piece of fruitcake in defiance of their partners’ enforced diets; they giggle like school children while hiding in a train toilet to avoid paying for a first-class ticket. No innuendos or cheesy chat-up lines necessary – their admiration for one another is straightforward and no-frills, the Ryanair equivalent of saucy dialogue. Yet the sexiest line of the whole show comes courtesy of Freddie after he gallantly rescues some pages from Lizzie’s work-in-progress novel that she accidentally leaves on the train.

“I hope you don’t mind, I read your chapters,” he says upon dropping them back to her. “They were brilliant… And sexy. Like you.” Like I said: swoon.

Hats off to whoever was responsible for casting. It takes real vision to see the potential of Dyer, in particular, to become the romantic hero we never knew we needed (though past viral clips airing his political views and an unlikely friendship with the late, great playwright Harold Pinter have long been testament to the fact that there’s much more to him than the hardman, cockney wide-boy image). There’s a beautiful stillness in both performances, with Dyer and Parkinson playing the gentle build-up just right, the very ordinariness of their longing making it all the hornier. While other characters flirt so brazenly that they should, by rights, burst into flames on the spot, Freddie and Lizzie convey overwhelming tenderness with just a look or a smile; their pauses say as much as the words they frame. We knew Parkinson had this in her locker, but Dyer? The master of nuance? It’s as shocking as it is tantalising.

Both actors are in their forties; both have refreshingly normal-looking bodies to match. And perhaps that’s the lesson in all of this: that underneath the gloss and the glamour, six-packs and DD cleavages, caricature baddies and virginal innocents, the hottest thing in the world is genuinely liking someone who likes you back; someone who sees and accepts you, flaws and all; someone who wants nothing more than to share a bar of Cadbury’s, rip open your hideously garish floral dress (with shoulder pads) and pour champagne over your heaving bosom.

“I’ve never done this before – adultery,” Lizzie says nervously when things finally get steamy between them.

“I’ve never met anyone I wanted to do it with before,” replies Freddie. Lock up your wives: after watching Rivals, I’m pretty sure there’s an army of women who wouldn’t mind, ahem, doing it with him…