Gabriel Tierney

Rivals dives headfirst into the cut-throat world of independent television in 1986, where the shoulder pads are big and ambitions even bigger. In the fictional upper-class county of Rutshire, a long-standing rivalry between two powerful men is about to boil over: ex-Olympian, Member of Parliament, and notorious womaniser Rupert Campbell-Black, and his Rutshire neighbour Tony Baddingham, controller of the independent TV franchise Corinium Television. As tensions rise and rivalries deepen, there are spilled secrets, forged alliances, and snatched liaisons that draw wives, lovers, colleagues, friends, and families into their battle.

The scripted drama will adapt Bernard Cornwell's trilogy of Arthurian novels, The Warlord Chronicles. In the first book, Derfel Cadarn, a former warrior sworn to Arthur and now an elderly monk, tells the story of how Arthur became warlord of Dark Age Britain despite illegitimacy to the throne.