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Watching Apple Tree Yard: Sex, Lies And Video Tape

Olly MacNamee writes

Just as all teenagers who have sex, or smoke dope in horror films are targeted for a brutal and bloody ending, anyone of a certain age, and social standing, embarking on a sordid, steamy affair in a TV drama of this nature will always have to pay the price for their adultery. And pay the price they do, as Doctor Yvonne Carmichael (Emily Watson) takes up with the charming, suited and booted Mark Costly (Ben Chaplin) upon a chance meeting in the Houses of Parliament. Soon, they are acting like giddy teenagers in the first embraces of passion and lust, bonking in the bellfry and, on one occasion, fumbling lustfully down the eponymous Apple Tree Yard; more a dark alley than a yard at all. An alley wired of sight and sound, as Costly is all too quick to point out, leading us all – including the loved-up Carmichael – deduce that this guy is a government Spook. Assuming you are sleeping with your very own James Bond can only add to the thrill, and so it does as the affair continues over the first two episodes and only looking like it will come apart when Costly takes up an act of passion and crosses a line no-one can ever come back from.

The first two episodes of the four-part drama are a tense and shocking ride, and the opening scenes are dripping with sexual tension everywhere Carmichael looks, foreshadowing her own yearnings. She may be middle aged but she hasn't lost her lust for life and a lust for walking on the darkside of the tracks either. She's still attractive and still seen as such by members of the opposite sex. However, it isn't just Costly that Carmichael attracts the attentions of, and on one horrendous evening, a work colleague, George, takes it too far leaving Carmichael broken as only a crime of such a violent and intrusive nature can do.

What starts off as a bit of a mid-life crisis for both Carmichael and Costly, soon spirals out of control as lie upon lie forces her into a being arrested and put on trial for murder. What starts as sexually stirred tension soon becomes a living nightmare as we are encouraged to take up this narrative from Carmichael's point of view, leaving us as vulnerable and as isolated at times as she is, as we try and piece together the events she is now privy to, whether she wants to be or not. We share her shock when she discovers her would-be knight in shining armour is more a knight in burnished brass. She stumbles through episode 2 after her attack, melancholy and helpless, knowing that if she reported this crime, Costly would be found out!

By episode 3, however, there seems to be a shift as the remaining two episodes become something of a courtroom drama and, for me at least, a different pace altogether as legalese and procedure dominate where once the thrills, tension and shocks of the first two episodes took center stage. Yes, there are still revelations to be had – and rather big ones at that – but the change in focus, setting and pacing didn't have me as enrapt as the first two episodes did. There's even the inevitable attempt to tear shreds into Carmichael's situation and undermine her validity as a victim of crime herself. And, at the hands of another woman to boot! Very much a game of two-halves, then.

Overall, a promising first two episodes with great performances by both Watson and Chaplin, but it is Watson who dominates this show; at times sinful, at others guiltily, quiet, while at other moments vulnerable mentally and physically. I just wasn't expecting a jarring right turn that leads the viewer into very different territory and an almost different genre altogether that just didn't work for me. Like watching Liverpool recently, after such a great first half of their season, really.

Apple Tree Yard is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Monday 20th February

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