Dame Jilly Cooper, the so-called queen of the bonkbuster—a charming Britishism for smut—gave us, long ago, an answer to Mel Gibson’s infamous question about what women want: Rupert Campbell-Black. The protagonist of her Rutshire Chronicles—the 11-book series written between 1985 and 2023—Campbell-Black is an Olympian showjumper turned politician and certified playboy who suddenly shows promise toward changing his hedonistic ways when he meets Taggie O’Hara. For many of us, that lucky lady now looks like Bella Maclean, the actress who had her breakout role in Disney’s adaptation of Rivals, the second novel in the Rutshire Chronicles, when it premiered last year.
In the show, as in the book, O’Hara is the twentysomething daughter of Declan, a workaholic Irish TV host played by Aidan Turner, and Maud, a head-in-the-clouds, free-spirited mother (Victoria Smurfit). Her parents’ detachment leaves her playing the de facto head of household—cooking, cleaning, and launching her own catering company for extra cash. She’s finally able to have a little fun when she begins a slow-burning, May-December romance with her father’s arch nemesis, the fortysomething (Lighten up! It was a different time!) Campbell-Black, played by Alex Hassell. For the show’s second season, released yesterday, Maclean reprises her role opposite Hassell—with whom, she tells me, the chemistry was there from the start.
