Riders

1 9 9 3 (UK)
4 x 60 minute episodes

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, double-entendre title for jolly super Jilly Cooper adaptation of her own bonkbuster about shagging amongst the horsey set.

The story (such as it was) concerned the equestrian rivalry between caddish upper-class Rupert Campbell-Black (Marcus Gilbert) and swarthy lower-class Jake Lovell (Michael Praed).

Mostly, though, the camera stayed voyeuristically in bed.

There were criticisms that the characters were hollow and their lines cringingly awful (“You have such marvellous hair. It’s the colour of drenched fox”) which rather missed Riders‘ singular credit: it was an almost documentary-like record of the braying classes at play.

Rupert Campbell-Black
Marcus Gilbert
Jake Lovell
Michael Praed
Helen Macaulay/Campbell-Black
Arabella Holzbog
Tory Lovell
Caroline Harker
Billy Lloyd-Foxe
Anthony Calf
Lavina Greenslade
Belinda Mayne
Granny Maxwell
Brenda Bruce
Fenella Maxwell
Sienna Guillory
Malise Gordon
John Standing
Humpty Hamilton
Timothy Morand
Molly Carter
Stephanie Beacham
Colonel Carter
Anthony Valentine
Nigel
Andrew Hall
Laura Duparru
Cécile Paoli
Janey Henderson
Serena Gordon