Queen honours an old friend – with her Rivals

THE Queen has met the cast and crew behind the dramatisation of her late friend Dame Jilly Cooper's bestseller Rivals, expressing sadness that a woman who meant so much to her was not there.

- ROD MINCHIN

The Queen joins Victoria Smurfit, left, and Alex Hassell for tea on the set of Rivals in Bristol

(Paul Gillis)

During a behind-the-scenes tour of the studios in Bristol, Camilla met those making the second series of the award-winning drama for Disney+.

Dame Jilly was an executive producer and the visit to the studio in Bristol had been organised before her death in October.

Speaking with Dame Jilly's son, Felix Cooper, and daughter Emily Tarrant, the Queen expressed her sadness and said: "She was such a big part of my life for such a long time. We all miss her so much."

She also told show writer and producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins, who was also a good friend of Dame Jilly: "It's so sad she's not here."

Rivals is set in the 1980s, against the backdrop of the Cotswolds countryside, and follows the high-stakes world of British television as careers, marriages and reputations hang by a thread when professional and personal lives collide.