In My Own Words: Jilly Cooper film celebrates supremely insightful, funny and sharp-eyed chronicler of our lives and times
Monday: In My Own Words: Jilly Cooper (BBC1, 10.40pm)
Jilly Cooper is already one of Britain’s best-loved writers – she’s sold over 12 million books and her status as an all-round national treasure was confirmed when she was made a dame in the New Year’s Honours list.
Speaking at the time, Jilly said: “I am absolutely and incredibly bowled over. I cannot believe I am a DBE, which in my case also stands for Delighted, Bewildered and Ecstatic!”
The author may be about to win over a whole new legion of fans when a new adaptation of her 1988 book Rivals hits Disney+ in October.
It stars David Tennant, Aidan Turner, Bella Maclean, Katherine Parkinson, Danny Dyer and Emily Atack, among many others, while the coveted role of ex-Olympian, politician and legendary womaniser Rupert Campbell-Black goes to Alex Hassell.
The writer says: “I couldn’t have dreamed of a better ensemble cast. I cannot wait to be on set and see them bring the characters I love so much to life.
“The minute we met with Alex we knew he’d perfectly embody my all-time hero, the iconic, racy, ruthless, and devastatingly handsome, Rupert Campbell-Black. Viewers are in for a treat!”
Of course, Cooper fans won’t have needed a cast list to be excited by the idea of one of her best-loved books coming to the screen. For newcomers, Rivals is set in the world of 1980s TV, and is a prime example of the author’s humour, impressive ability to marshal a large cast of memorable characters, and her keen eye for the messiness of relationships and the way class impacts on British society.
So, as viewers prepare to dive into her world, it’s also the perfect time for In My Own Words: Jilly Cooper, which finds her sharing her own story, with access to her personal archive.
Now 87, she looks back on her childhood in Yorkshire, where she believes her love of horses, dogs, and devilishly handsome men were all forged.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Jilly began her career in what she describes as the ‘macho’ worlds of publishing and, with unflinching honesty, recounts an incident of attempted rape by a then-famous (and unnamed) author.
She also revisits the Putney home she shared with her late husband Leo and their children. She was living there when she began to find success in the late 1960s with a Sunday Times column about sex, marriage and society that now seems decades ahead of its time.
In 1975, Jilly published her first novel, the romance Emily. More ‘name’ books (all of which are named after a female character) would follow. However, it was the 1985 novel Riders, the first in a series of racy books that would become known as the ‘Rutshire Chronicles’ that catapulted her to the top of the bestseller lists and made her a household name.
And as cameras follow her to a polo match at Cirencester Park, where she’s mobbed by fans, young and old, it’s clear that Jilly hasn’t lost her place on the nation’s bookshelves.