For all the rampant randiness and wonderfully posh one-liners Jilly Cooper's saucy soap is beginning to grow up: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Rivals

Rivals (Disney+)Rating:Even in the midst of death, we are in lust. As Jilly Cooper's outrageously saucy soap returns, the wicked toffs of Rutshire are gathered for a funeral – and they still can't stop bonking.No sooner has the Great Storm of 1987 claimed poor Lady Baddingham (Claire Rushbrook), flattening her car with a tree, than half the cast of Rivals are assuaging their grief with the other half. Everyone's pairing off at the wake and making the feeblest excuses to be absent.Novelist Lizzie (Katherine Parkinson) actually claims she has to nip out to check she didn't leave the oven on. The randiness is so rampant that her lover Freddie (Danny Dyer) even ends up having sex with his own wife, Valerie (Lisa McGrillis), which is unheard of in their part of the Cotswolds.If all this sounds a trifle muddled, imagine how the characters feel. Rufus Jones, as the endlessly cuckolded Paul, leaps to entirely the wrong conclusion about which local lothario has made his spouse pregnant. Even in the midst of death, we are in lust. As Jilly Cooper's outrageously saucy soap returns, the wicked toffs of Rutshire are gathered for a funeral – and they still can't stop bonking No sooner has the Great Storm of 1987 claimed poor Lady Baddingham flattening her car with a tree, than half the cast of Rivals are assuaging their grief with the other halfHe hurls himself at Lizzie's TV presenter husband James (Oliver Chris), shouting: 'Stay away from my wife, you bottle-blond giraffe.'Lines like that are the enduring pleasure of Rivals, back today with three more episodes after its autumn break.Felicity Kendal, aged 80, supplies a glorious cameo as the throaty literary agent Carole. 'I've taken a lover,' she announces over the phone. 'A Greek. Not a word of English. He has so much hair on his torso, I thought at first he was wearing a gilet.' What a wonderfully posh line that is – not just the unspoken disdain for foreigners as a sort of superior species of animal, but the implication that while Carole surely regards a vest or a singlet as common, a gilet is rather sexy.Rachael Stirling also drops in, as the late Monica Baddingham's sister, Araminta – or Aunt Min to Mon's bewildered children.Aunt Min pretends to be there for the funeral, but she actually skips the service in order to repossess all the family heirlooms.For all the raunchiness and repartee, this is the episode where Rivals begins to grow up – or at least when the pain and devastation its characters leave in their wake starts to catch up with them. Tony (David Tennant) blames himself, not without justice, for Mon's death. If she hadn't rushed out of the house after discovering his latest infidelity, she would still be alive. For all the raunchiness, this is the episode where Rivals begins to grow up – or at least when the pain and devastation its characters leave in their wake starts to catch up with them Now he's veering between suicidal despair and a white-hot desire to see all his enemies destroyed.Tennant goes almost Shakespearean in his wrath, howling and sobbing like King Lear on the heath. Alex Hassell, as Rupert Campbell-Black, was one of the less well-known stars when Rivals launched two years ago.Randy Rupert, who held Mon's hand as she expired calling for her children, is so affected by her death that he breaks into his son's boarding school to see the boy.We all know that he will never be able to follow his moral compass till he admits how much he needs the saintly Taggie, played by Bella Maclean. But she has retreated to the fringes of the story, so he will just have to go on being a cad for now.As ever, a clever use of 1980s pop on the soundtrack heightens the emotion of it all. China In Your Hand by T'Pau makes a more moving accompaniment for Mon's funeral than The Day Thou Gavest could possibly be.But as Lord B grabs his shotgun, with the drumbeat of In The Air Tonight, be warned – if you're fond of peacocks, you'll never listen to Phil Collins again.