Rivals features a juicy Poldark Easter egg for fans of Aidan Turner
Poldark fans may be familiar with certain parts of Rivals.
It turns out that there's quite the Poldark-Rivals crossover to be had in the new Disney Plus series.
Aside from, of course, featuring Ross Poldark himself, aka Aidan Turner, Rivals also utilised one of the locations used in the period drama.
Being used as 'The Priory' in Rivals – which is none other than Turner's on-screen home – Chavenage House in Tetbury may be recognisable to Poldark fans as Trenwith.
In Poldark, Trenwith was the sight of some pretty steamy scenes – arguably in the same vein of Rivals, the new series which has gotten viewers talking with its racy themes and sex scenes.
In a press pack for Rivals, it's stated that the team behind the new series "required locations as impressive as their characters", with a starting point for producer Eliza Mellor being Caroline Lowsley-Williams, the owner of Chavenage House.
The pair had actually worked together on Poldark, and found that Chavenage, an Elizabethan Grade I-listed building that is frequented by King Charles and Princess Anne, was a perfect fit for the O'Hara family as they move to Rutshire from London.
The new Disney Plus series takes us on a whirlwind ride through the world of '80s independent television, the fight for franchise power and the salacious lives of the people in Rutshire.
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Turner stars as TV presenter Declan O'Hara in the show, being joined by Victoria Smurfit as wife Maud, Bella Maclean as daughter Taggie, Catriona Chandler as daughter Caitlin and Gabriel Tierney as son Patrick.
Part of just one of the families within the expansive world of Rutshire, Turner revealed that he thinks fans of the original Jilly Cooper novel won't be disappointed by the new adaptation.
When speaking to RadioTimes.com, Nafessa Williams said: "Fans of Rivals are going to be so excited, and I hope that it’s as exciting for them as it was for us making it, and they see the visual – you know, when you read a book, you have a visual in your head of what the characters are going to look and feel like."
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Turner agreed, saying: "I don’t think they’ll be disappointed."
He continued: "I think so, too. I was aware of who Jilly Cooper was, obviously, and being in Ireland, we’re not that far away, and the book’s very popular there, obviously, but [I] hadn’t read any before we started shooting.
"It’s one of those great things as an actor that you get to do, you’ll never imagine that you’d get to read these books, I suppose, they wouldn’t have been on my radar, and then you get to read them. You get to be introduced to a whole new genre, really, it’s fun."
Rivals is available to stream on Disney Plus.
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