AS SHE SIGNS UP FOR SECOND SERIES OF 'RIVALS' THE TIME OF HER LIFE VICTORIA SMURFIT ON HER DREAM ROLE, HER INSPIRING KIDS AND TRUE LOVE AT 50

Dancing around the studio to the 1980s soundtrack that's providing the background music for this exclusive HELLO! photoshoot, Victoria Smurfit looks to be having the time of her life.

- LAURA BENJAMIN

And it's no wonder - the Irish actress is one of the biggest stars in Rivals, perhaps the most talked-about TV show of the year, and she is about to celebrate her first wedding anniversary with husband Steve Jacobs.

Life for the effervescent star is good.

"The past year has been great fun," she tells us. "It's been chaotically brilliant: there's been a lot of travel, I'm newly married and I couldn't be happier." The runaway success of Rivals is, she says, down to one thing. "The show is full of joy. We brought in some fun, which everybody needs in their lives, and I think the younger generation are loving it because they're getting to find out what the Eighties looked like and secretly want to go back." And while the show's stars, including Victoria, David Tennant, Danny Dyer and Emily Atack, have been lauded for their brilliant comic performances, the attention to detail has also been praised.

"The costumes are so extraordinarily authentic: the hair, the make-up and the set decoration were all like being immersed in the Eighties," Victoria says. "You would open up a drawer and there would be books from that time in there."

Based on Dame Jilly Cooper's 1988 book, Rivals focuses on the raucous, promiscuous and calculating country set in the fictional county of Rutshire.

Landing the part of Maud O'Hara, the wife of TV presenter Declan portrayed by Aidan Turner - was a dream come true for the actress, 50, who grew up loving the book.

"I moved to England with my family when I was 14, and my mum was reading all the Jilly books and I remember her laughing her head off," she recalls.

"Reading Jilly's words was my first understanding of what it was like living in England, and I was so attached to Maud and her daughter Taggie because they were the Irish characters. I wanted to call my kid Declan."

DREAM ROLE