Sex and shoulder pads: Victoria Smurfit on bringing the Irish touch to the new season of Rivals
Victoria Smurfit originally encountered Jilly Cooper's work through her mother's copy of Rivals. Picture: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for NTA
The scandal is bigger, the shoulder pads are sharper, and the sex is even more outrageous — but beneath the champagne-drenched chaos of season two runs something far deeper: heartbreak, ambition, insecurity, and an aching need to be loved.
At the centre of the Disney+ adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s salacious novel is the O’Hara family: Irish bohemians who find themselves, almost inevitably, at the heart of everyone’s attention. With Victoria Smurfit back in action as the wildly dramatic actor Maud O’Hara, she says, despite their issues, Maud’s relationship with her broadcaster husband Declan, played by Aidan Turner, is the most straightforward of any of the show’s couples.
“There’s the Irish bohemian element to that, which is: we don’t want to be anybody other than ourselves, because we’re fabulous. They are deeply in love with each other. They just have days when they don’t like each other. There’s that power struggle of who’s the star, who’s in the spotlight, how long can Maud stay out of the spotlight? I think they’re very honest in how they operate. They’re shoot-from-the-hip kind of people.”
Smurfit notes having Irish actors play Irish characters enables a natural rapport and shared understanding between herself and Turner.
“There is a common language, and a trust that is pretty phenomenal. It doesn’t really matter how extraordinary a situation the writers might put Aidan or myself in; we will probably not discuss it, and we’ll just go in and do whatever it is. We really want the stuff to be good, but there’s such a trust level. It’s like we just go into a room and we just go kaboom and then go for a cup of tea and fight over the custard creams.”
The show’s creator and writer, Dominic Treadwell-Collins, was born in England, but his father is from Skibbereen. Smurfit describes Treadwell-Collins as sounding English but being Irish, and as someone who understands what it means to be Irish in the upper-class world of .
“I think it gives him an interesting perspective on the British class system, how they operate amongst each other, with each other and against each other. It’s almost like the British class system is all about subtext, whereas the Irish is all about the text. Whatever we say, it is very clear.”
Lisa McGrillis plays Valerie Jones, wife of the downtrodden tech mogul Fred, played by Danny Dyer. Valerie is by far the funniest character in the show, but she is more than just comic relief, as McGrillis explains.
“When you are approaching a character like Valerie, you have got to understand why they are the way they are. I need to find her vulnerability. I need to understand why she behaves the way she does. Jilly writes these beautiful characters and addresses the class system. Valerie is a social climber, but she’s not from the same world as these people. It doesn’t matter what she does. It doesn’t matter that she has the biggest house or the most expensive clothes — all of that goes for nothing. She just does not fit in, and people laugh at her.”
The show may be bursting with outrageous behaviour and gregarious characters, but its smart dialogue and strong emotional core mean it is far more than throwaway television. McGrillis credits Treadwell-Collins and lead writer Laura Wade for their intelligent approach to the material.
“Laura writes for the stage. Episode two of the new season, for example, is like watching a theatrical farce. When the quality of the writing is as good as this, it is a gift. If you can learn the lines quickly, the writing is really good, and this is phenomenal. What they have done in this season is huge. The journeys different characters go on are surprising. Every episode sort of feels like it’s the finale but then… [there’s more].”
Smurfit agrees the team behind the show have done a stellar job adapting Cooper’s novel, using outrageous behaviour to mask the characters’ deeper emotional pain.
“As it teeters on the edge of being almost too sweet or too fun, it plunges you into emotion and vulnerability. Every single character is fighting and hiding their insecurities. They’re all so raw, but every character has a different way of masking their imposter syndrome, their fear of love, their fear of not having love, their fear of being alone, their fear of being ignored or being irrelevant. It’s how they build those characters and those storylines so that you’re always peeling away, and then just when you’re going to peel away so far you can’t handle it, it’s covered in a smorgasbord of colour.”
Whether people admit it or not, most Irish households have a copy of a Jilly Cooper novel, with the more steamy pages dog-eared from rereading. Smurfit is no exception and recalls “borrowing” her mother’s copy of
“I still have the original. My mum had it. I remember we had just moved to England, to Surrey, and I’d hear her guffawing with laughter. So of course I’m like, ‘What is she reading?’ When she was distracted, making dinner or whatever, I’d steal the book. Then she'd be going to bed, and I would hear "where's my book?'"
was not just Smurfit’s sex education; it was also her guide to being Irish in Surrey. “I was suddenly going to a very well-to-do all-girls school and encountering all these wonderful British types. We were the mad Irish family. I remember there was a magazine article back in 1988 or ’89 about the village we’d moved into, interviewing the locals. Sheikh somebody had moved in, and the magazine interviewer asked, ‘Are you alright with all that?’ The local lady said, ‘Oh yes, we’re terribly welcoming here. We even have the Irish.’”
With the cast often talking about banning family members from watching their more steamy scenes, has Smurfit attempted to dissuade her family from watching Maud O’Hara’s bedroom antics?
“ hasn’t even started on the dirty bits! We could teach them. But no, I’m in my ‘fuck it’ years now. My son is never going to watch it, that’s his decision, and he’s totally right. My daughters love it. They don’t even comment on it. My dad only really watches sports or detective shows. With the best will and love in the world, it wouldn’t really be his jam. But my cousins all love it. It’s just part of the job. They would probably find it more awkward watching me cry with feelings.”
Season two marks Maud’s return to the stage, mirroring how has also drawn Smurfit back into theatre since the first season. She notes the uncanny similarities between her own acting career and Maud’s.
“It is mad. In , Maud returns to performing an Ibsen play, playing the maid, and in real life, I got to do an adaptation of Ibsen’s at the Lyric in Hammersmith. It was amazing. I hadn’t been on stage for 17 years because I couldn’t afford to — I was raising three kids. You had to go and get the job that paid. It was such a bonkers coincidence, but also a very exhausting but satisfying job. Amazing, but weird. Terrifying.”
- season 2 streams on Disney+ from Friday May 15
