What did you expect, Disney?
Woke US bosses tell cast to reshoot sex scenes in Jilly Cooper’s Rivals deemed too raunchy for the MeToo era
SHE is the ‘queen of the bonkbuster’, with a global reputation for writing outrageously steamy sex scenes.
Yet Dame Jilly Cooper has fallen foul of cautious American TV executives, who fear a forthcoming adaptation of her raunchy novel Rivals will prove too much for modern viewers.
Bosses at streaming service Disney+ have ordered several intimate scenes of the star-studded series to be reshot amid fears they are inappropriate in the post-MeToo age.
However the content of Dame Jilly’s 1988 book, set among the social elite in the fictional county of Rutshire, should not have come as any surprise. After snapping up the rights, Disney boasted how the novel was ‘full of sex’ and involved ‘drama, excess, and shocking antics’.
Nor is Dame Jilly’s prose particularly coy. One woman is described as ‘an electric eel in the sack’ and another is ‘an excited whippet’. Plus, the story involves a powerful man approaching 40 hitching up with a woman yet to turn 19, which must surely have set alarm klaxons blaring.
Yet sources close to the project say some executives found certain scenes ‘a bit much’.
One said: ‘It was a very different world in the 1980s, when the book was written, so there were always going to be some issues in getting it right for today’s viewers.’
However other insiders suggest a different reason for the reshoots – which are likely to delay the planned release later this year – claiming that the scenes were simply ‘not good enough to air’.
That may be particularly embarassing given that the eight-part series boasts a stellar cast, including Poldark heartthrob Aidan Turner, ex-Doctor Who David Tennant, Sex Education actress Bella Maclean and Alex Hassell, from BBC fantasy series His Dark Materials.
One source told The Mail on Sunday that two intimacy coordinators were brought in to ensure the sex scenes were shot with respect for the actors.
But they added: ‘Some of those scenes just weren’t good enough for the Disney bosses in America. The sex scenes lacked a certain something so many are having to be re-shot.
‘This will inevitably lead to a delay as to when we can expect to see it on our screens, which is all rather embarrassing. There are a lot of people scrambling to make Rivals good enough for broadcast. It’s not ideal given the amount of money that has been spent and the high-profile actors involved.’
The story revolves around the rakish ex-Olympian and Tory MP Rupert Campbell-Black, played by Hassell, who is locked in a bitter battle with Tennant’s egotistical and ambitious character Lord Tony Baddingham over the future of a TV production company.
Hassell’s character also falls for the teenage Taggie O’Hara, played by 23-year-old Ms Maclean.
In Dame Jilly’s novel, the marriages are largely of convenience, with wives accepting ‘boys will be boys’. Men are applauded for their caddish tendencies. Women’s weight is frequently referenced. One wife proudly announces that she weighs seven stone and that anyone larger than a size six is fat. One young character is referred to as ‘poor fat Sharon’.
The series, which also stars EastEnders’ Danny Dyer, Nafessa Williams from the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody and IT Crowd star Katherine Parkinson, has been adapted by former EastEnders writer Dominic Treadwell-Collins.
Disney has been critcised for being ‘too woke’ recently, showing a lesbian kiss in the family movie Lightyear, swapping Minnie Mouse’s classic polka-dot dress for a more ‘progressive’ pantsuit and slapping content warnings on its old films.