Disney+'s Dominic Treadwell-Collins talks Jilly Cooper

EXCLUSIVE: Disney+s Rivals may be out tomorrow, but the Jilly Cooper adaptation has been in the mind of producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins since he broke into the television industry 25 years ago.

Treadwell-Collins has had a distinguished career, including a long stint as a presenter on the BBC soap EastEnders and the idea of ​​adapting Cooper's novels was always central to him. But until Disney gave him the green light in 2022, he told Deadline he felt like he was constantly running into the same enemy – the innate “snobbery” of British television.

“I had meetings with the BBC and ITV years ago when I didn't have the rights and I said: 'Would you go for something like Jilly Cooper?' They looked at me like I had farted,” he said. “There's something snobbish about her. Throughout my career I kept mentioning Jilly and everyone kind of laughed at me and made fun of me.”

Cooper's books, of which there are many, are often referred to as “bonkbusters,” a term coined in the 1980s to describe a raunchy subgenre of romance novels that has tabloid journalists licking their lips. But for Treadwell-Collins, who first read Cooper as a teenager, she is a “brilliant storyteller who writes about class and people in a funny and thoughtful way.”

“She’s like Dickens,” he added.

Treadwell-Collins said he tried to pitch Rivals several times in the last two decades and has been set back. He got the rights in 2020 after developing a close relationship with Cooper and set about writing the pilot with the author's blessing. Ironically, given his views on the Commissioner's snobbery, he felt taken more seriously by the television community after he left EastEnders and worked with Russell T Davies on the Emmy-winning BBC-Amazon series A very English scandal, He also co-wrote the Graham Norton adaptation Hold for ITV.

The launch of his indie title, the ITV Studios-backed Happy Prince, gave him the opportunity to start re-pitching Rivals. “I always held onto Jilly Cooper and thought, 'Okay, when I have my own company, I'll do it myself,'” he said. “I had to produce (A very English one) scandal that people say, 'Oh, he's not just a soap producer,' which I think is wrong.”

Set in the fictional Cotswolds-like county of Rutshire. Rivals depicts the animosity between new money lord Tony Baddingham and aristocrat Rupert Campbell-Black, a rivalry that spills into Baddingham's Corinium TV station just as the world of commercial television is on the rise – a world which Treadwell-Collins finds “celebrated” from the Cooper novel. “I remember starting out in television and seeing these old-school executives having an alcoholic lunch, coming back completely drunk and saying, 'We have a show,'” he said. “That’s how it used to work.”

After deciding to adapt the first half of the novel, Treadwell-Collins changed course and began reaching out to streamers. “I knew we needed a bigger budget,” he explained. “Jilly Cooper has historically been made quite cheaply and that just adds to the ridiculousness. To take it seriously you needed a big budget because this is a story about money and power.”

Disney+, which was in the midst of developing its international originals, was intrigued, and Treadwell-Collins liked the way Lee Mason, the streamer's EMEA head of scripted originals, appreciated that “we skewered race and class and “We've been coming here since 1986 and haven't come any more.” Mason also liked that the show was “about television and creating preconceptions about Jilly Cooper,” he added, and Treadwell-Collins finally had the green light Light. It launches tomorrow on Disney+ worldwide and on Hulu in the US

Aside from wasting the money, he was impressed with what the Mouse House brought to the table. “You would have thought that Disney might have been a little upset, but that wasn't the case. They wanted us to push boundaries and questioned every scene.”

Seeing Tennant, Turner & Dyer in a new light

Casting was always crucial and Treadwell-Collins' goal from day one was “to see everyone do something they'd never done before.”

In this regard, few could argue that he has failed. David Tennant plays Baddingham, the snooty nouveau riche owner of Corinium, Aidan Turner gets the rare opportunity to show off his native Irish accent as star presenter Declan O'Hara, and Danny Dyer, who worked with Treadwell-Collins EastEnders, is Freddie Jones, a millionaire with a sensitive soul whose wife doesn't give him what he deserves. Ali & Ava The main actress is Claire Rushbrook, who is known for films like Mike Leigh's secrets and lies, plays, according to Treadwell-Collins, “the most distinguished person in the series” and impresses as Baddingham’s wife, Lady Monica.

The casting team gathered for a “X factor“-Style Judges Houses” were set up to decide on the final casting, and Treadwell-Collins was aware of the need for due care in hiring roles that would be “fairly close to sexuality and some of our other themes “.

In the end, Treadwell-Collins was thrilled with his acting troupe. “They're playing with people they're not familiar with and that keeps them on their toes,” he added. “They influenced each other in a positive way, but they also wanted to impress each other.”

He gave the same attention to the writing process. After years of leading a strong team of writers EastEnders, Treadwell-Collins always wanted to create an American-style writers' room after drafting his first scripts.

Splitting his space into two rooms, he first assembled a large team to interrogate the source material and refine the themes, before a smaller group led by Treadwell-Collins and Happy Prince's Alex Lamb finalized the scripts. Playwright Laura Wade was on board as writer/EP alongside the likes of EP Felicity Blunt and Treadwell-Collins and said Wade was responsible for making the series “punchy and funny” by “sprinkling her writing throughout the scripts.” Lead director Elliot Hegarty, now a BAFTA nominee, who worked on it Ted Lasso, “knew how to tell a story through sex.”

The close connection with the writing team enabled Treadwell-Collins to modernize Cooper in a way that he felt would better suit modern society. He introduced more LGBTQ+ storylines and changed the race of fierce Corinium manager Cameron Cook, played by Nafessa Williams (black and blue). “We thought this would be a way to tell an outsider’s story Rivals“, he added.

Creating a “Cooperverse.”

Treadwell-Collins believes the result could be the next big international streaming franchise as the big US players look to score longer-running hits. With Deadline releasing this feature, Disney+ is big Doctor Who The international franchise bet seems to be on the brink, while Sally Wainwright's Renegade Nell didn't make it past season 1.

“I've thought about Jilly Cooper for so long and I know there is a 'Cooperverse,'” said Treadwell-Collins. “Your books have weight. We only told half of it Rivals because we wanted to delve deeper into the characters. TV is such a disposable thing these days, but I want people to watch it again rivals, I want it to be television that lasts a long time.”

These “permanent” characters have lived in Treadwell-Collins’ head for much of his life. The proof will now lie in whether they can penetrate the minds of millions of others.