'If I could tell 14-year-old me I'd be playing Maud in Rivals'

The Disney+ hit series Rivals is back on our screens, returning to the fictional Cotswolds countryside town of Rutshire and its colourful residents.

One of them is Maud O'Hara, played by Irish actress Victoria Smurfit, and she has described the second series as "more filthy and frolicsome" than ever.

The series, based on one of Dame Jilly Cooper's so-called "bonkbusters", features an all-star cast including David Tennant. Danny Dyer and Aidan Turner, who plays Smurfit's on-screen husband Declan O'Hara.

"If I could tell 14-year-old me that one day I'd be playing Maud and I'd be married to Declan, I think I would not have been able to compute that idea," Smurfit said.

Originally published in 1988, Rivals is the second of Cooper's hugely successful Rutshire Chronicles, a series of books that chronicle the lives of English upper and upper-middle classes in a fictional area of the Cotswolds.

Set against the backdrop of 1980s excess and large country estates, the series tells the story of the rivalry between the aristocratic Rupert Campbell-Black and TV executive Lord Tony Baddingham.

Smurfit said series 2 is "bigger, it's juicier, it's bolder, it's more outrageous".

"Almost in every episode you'll get an outrageous ball or polo or something where everyone's together, but every character now gets an amazing arch to include the good, the bad and the ugly, which is unheard of really, so it's delicious," Smurfit said.

Her character Maud is a former actress who's husband is a journalist-turned-chat show-host hired by Baddingham.

They and their three children, Taggie, Patrick and Caitlin, then move from London to the Cotswolds, much to Maud's bemusement.

She is depicted as being flirtatious with other men, and described as being "made of two parts whiskey and one part devilment".

Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme, Smurfit said: "I think like every decent woman, you should be some part devilment and some part whiskey and it just depends on what level we're going to be at."

When asked if she sees any elements of Maud in herself she said: "I hope I'm a better mother than her, my kids say I am, and I definitely have to be a better wife than Maud, I mean she's desperate.

"But I think her kind of bohemian spirit – I really enjoy getting into that and also Maud's vulnerability to excuse her appalling behaviour," Smurfit said.

Smurfit told the programme that growing up she and her mum were "obsessed" with the books.

"Obviously she read it going: 'Isn't Maud amazing', and I would read it going: 'No, isn't Taggie amazing?'.

"And now here I am, Maud's age and having the extraordinary privilege to play her. And, guess what mum, I married Declan.

"It is a bonkers, bonkers thing but I think of it as the longest method acting research I've ever done because it's been 40 years of having Dame Jilly Cooper in my life and that is also a privilege to know the legend in real terms," Smurfit said.

She told the programme that after her mum died and she was going through her wardrobe she decided to donate her mum's 1980s fashion to the show's costume designer Ray Holman.

She said her mum's clothes "lives on in the Rivals store cupboard".

"I know she'd have loved that – the idea that: 'Oh, Katherine Parkinson's wearing my belt'."

Dame Jilly Cooper died last year aged 88.

Smurfit said she had signed off on all the scripts and recalled the day the cast and crew found out about her death as they were filming.

"It's a testament to Dame Jilly's champagne sparkly soul that at no point did I think it could have been her and unfortunately it was.

She described Cooper as a "magical being and sprinkled fairy dust and literally champagne wherever she went".

"Unfortunately for us and her family and frankly the entire world that this glorious spirit has gone on.

"My mum will look after her up top," Smurfit said.

Rivals is now streaming on Disney+ .