Apple Tree Yard: From the writer of BBC smash hit drama 'Crossfire'

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Later, at home, Yvonne can scarcely believe what she has done: it is totally out of character. But in the days to come, she becomes obsessed with finding her random lover again, and succeeds in doing so. Emily Watson’s character, Yvonne Carmichael, looks out of the window as the vehicle in which she is travelling crosses a bridge over the Thames in London. She reflects on human nature, on the choices we make, how fear turns us into animals. The Thames can make you reflect, although Yvonne has more reason to do so than most. She is not on a bus, but in a prisoner transport van, possibly operated by G4S. She is cuffed and on the way to court, to be tried for murder. So begins this four-part adaptation of novelist (and Christmas University Challenge finalist) Louise Doughty’s psychological thriller Apple Tree Yard (BBC1, Sunday). Anyway, for Yvonne, he is not just good in the cul-de-sac, but awakens something deep in her, something she didn’t know was there. “Sex with you is like being eaten by a wolf,” she writes. And that’s good? Well, it puts a new spin on the Little Red Riding Hood story. Actually, make Yvonne the grandmother, because that’s marginally less seedy, and she is just about to become a granny – her daughter announces she’s pregnant. A splendidly well-made courtroom drama, full of equally sharp turns of plot and phrase… Apple Tree Yard is very, very good.” DNA made me and DNA undid me." So confesses the protagonist of Louise Doughty's 2013 novel Apple Tree Yard, a middle-aged scientist and mother, Yvonne Carmichael, now standing trial for a grisly murder.

Vincent, Alice (23 January 2017). "Emily Watson felt 'traumatised' by Apple Tree Yard rape scene". The Telegraph. Like all tragic figures, Yvonne has a lot to lose. She is happily married to a fellow research scientist with two grown-up children and an esteemed academic record: “I am fifty-two. I have status and gravitas – when I don’t have my tights round my ankles in a secluded chapel beneath the Houses of Parliament, that is.” Yet the analytical part of her mind cannot help but try to determine the significance of the anomaly: “In science we accept aberrations. It is only when aberrations keep happening that we stop and try and look for a pattern.” The four-part series was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 20 February 2017. [9] Accolades [ edit ] Year

Weekly Top 30 Programmes". Barb.co.uk . Retrieved 12 January 2014. (No permanent link available. Search for relevant dates.) International Emmy Award Nominations Unveiled". Variety. 27 September 2018 . Retrieved 27 November 2018. Shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger for Best Thriller and the Specsavers National Book Awards Crime & Thriller of the Year verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ There is a strong message here that – contrary to what you might be led to believe from Every Other Drama On Television – female sexuality doesn’t suddenly end at 35, but can become more powerful and more profound. Certainly for Yvonne it does, even if it somehow leads her to court.

The phrase “There’s something I haven’t told you” is central to the outcome of the trial. What are some of the many things that the characters in APPLE TREE YARD do not tell each other? What are the consequences? Why does Yvonne tell us that “relationships are about stories, not truth”? Doughty inevitably draws upon the dramatic irony of a geneticist condemned by her own field of research: “DNA made me and DNA undid me. DNA is God … one of the few discoveries of mankind that mean there’s no point in being a liar.” But she also uses the model of the genome to explain how the small, consoling fictions we tell ourselves build up into complex patterns of deceit: “It is human nature to let people think that we are something more glamorous than we are. I let you believe that I am one of the nation’s top geneticists, when actually I am a moderately successful scientist coasting on past research.”Apple Tree Yard does feel like a very female thing. And that’s good. Female in a positive, powerful, celebratory way, too. Although I didn’t feel much of a bond with it, or with Carmichael – in spite of Watson’s excellent performance. Or with Chaplin either, to be fair, but his is more of a role than a character. This is about her, and because this part is all about how she feels, it would help if I felt more for her. So perhaps it is inevitable that when Yvonne meets a handsome stranger during a business trip to the House of Commons, she is vulnerable to seduction. And what a seducer the suited, booted, and oh-so-confident man is. Within minutes of meeting in a HoC canteen, the pair have found a secluded corner of the Palace of Westminster and are engaging in raw, passionate sex. The opening of Louise Doughty‘s last novel, Whatever You Love, was brutal and unexpected – a woman opens her door to a pair of police officers who inform her that her daughter has been killed in a road accident. The beginning of the present book is no less surprising, though the brutality comes later. Her trial in the Old Bailey is less concerned with DNA evidence, finally hinging on a much more observable detail: the London laneway that she and her secret lover slipped into, at the start of a horrifically fateful night. The side street, sheltered from prying eye and CCTV, gives Doughty’s her title, and a compelling four-part adaptation of the book gives BBC drama a much-needed boost in credibility (BBC One, Monday, 9pm). For its excellent supporting role, London is rewarded with an unlikely new tourist spot: a photo op for fans of forbidden fruit.

Rape on television is often an unthinking plot device, used to destroy women or spur avenging males. Here, mercifully, Yvonne is not diminished; damaged but not destroyed. As the story gets darker, turning through consequences and revelations (rather than twists), it’s her power, more than her lover’s, that comes under close examination. She can influence others and deceive herself. Director Jessica Hobbs rations out plot details in a model of fleet visual storytelling and elliptical ambiguity. In her shots, the details of London tend to dissolve into soft focus, all watery blues and burning orange, as though the narrative winds between a daydream and panic of wakefulness. Award-winning writer Hilary Mantel comments hauntingly about this story: ‘There cannot be a woman alive who hasn’t once realised, in a moment of panic, that she is in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man.’ However, the rape scene was heavily criticised by several victim support organisations, with Rape Crisis England and Wales spokeswoman Katie Russell branding the scene "harrowing". [ citation needed] Apple Tree Yard was produced by Kudos Film & Television (production company). MyHome.ie (Opens in new window) • Top 1000 • The Gloss (Opens in new window) • Recruit Ireland (Opens in new window) • Irish Times Training (Opens in new window)In the aftermath of what has happened, a devastated Yvonne shuts down. She feels unable to talk to the police or her husband, but as a campaign of terror is mounted against her, she is pushed to her limits and turns to her former lover, Costley, for advice. They meet for one last time and share a passionate afternoon together, before Costley takes control of the situation and Yvonne is plunged from one nightmare into another.