Malaga turns clock back to the 1980s for filming of Jilly Cooper's Rivals with British actor Alex Hassell

Malaga city centre has been swarming with camera crews this Monday morning (18 September) for the filming of new Disney+ series Rivals.

San Agustín street and the surrounding area was like a scene from the 1980s as filming got underway for the fiction adaptation of Jilly Cooper's best seller Rutshire Chronicles.

Flower shops and cafés were transformed with an aesthetic of the previous century. There were bullfighting posters from 1987 on the walls, while extras walking down the street wore tube skirts and high-cut trousers.

The eight-episode drama is set in the ruthless world of 1980s television. Malaga-based production company Fresco Film (La Casa del Dragón) is once again behind the filming of the production by ITV Studios and Happy Prince for Disney+, which will be filmed over a week in Malaga city and Estepona, as well as in Motril (Granada).

British actors Alex Hassell and David Tennant play two opposing neighbours in an elite residential area. Tennant plays the charismatic Rupert Campbell-Black, a former Olympic champion and Conservative party politician who disputes the ambitious and egotistical Lord Tony Baddingham's control of the Corinium television channel. The series portrays the unstable and complex world of the small screen as presenters, actors, producers and journalists try to survive in the crossfire between politician and tycoon.

It is the second Disney production to be filmed in Malaga. Last spring the multinational transformed the centre of Malaga city into a 1940s Brazilian setting for the filming of the World War II series We Were the Lucky Ones.