thu 28/03/2024

Apple Tree Yard, Series Finale, BBC One | reviews, news & interviews

Apple Tree Yard, Series Finale, BBC One

Apple Tree Yard, Series Finale, BBC One

Emily Watson triumphs in punishing criminal melodrama

Background check. Emily Watson and Ben Chaplin in 'Apple Tree Yard'

Guilty or not guilty? Dum dum, dum dum. No, it was not just in your imagination. As the axe hovered over the neck of Yvonne Carmichael at the climax of Apple Tree Yard, and the madam forewoman waited to deliver the jury’s verdict, there was an entirely synthetic and deeply irritating pause for dramatic effect. Guilty of the murder or manslaughter of George Selway? Dum dum. Dum dum. Or innocent? Dum dum.

Perhaps Mrs Carmichael also found herself cursing Simon Cowell as the hideous grammar of his talent show bled into the doings of courtroom drama. Dum dum, dum dum. Over on ITV they’d have bunged a commercial break in the gap. Here we interrupt this review to announce that the following paragraphs contain spoilers.

Of course the verdict was never in doubt. A morality tale in which the middle-aged woman who strays is punished with rape and imprisonment? Well they can put such bile and filth in fancy books for the liberal elites but they can’t get away with it on primetime BBC One, with the commentariat at their keyboards primed to cry foul. Thus Yvonne Carmichael (Emily Watson), having been roughed up by a prosecuting barrister and sold down the river by Mark Costley (Ben Chaplin), was eventually freed to go home and face her slightly crumpy Gary (Mark Bonnar, pictured below with Watson) before redemption came in the form of a grandchild.Emily Watson and Ben Chaplin in Apple Tree YardThe title of Louise Doughty’s novel alludes to the plant that got Adam and Eve into all that trouble. Original sin, the temptation to disobey one simple divine instruction, is a powerful tool for drama. Just ask Orpheus. Apple Tree Yard started off in the underworld of the House of Commons, a broom cupboard that is a shrine of female empowerment because suffragette Emily Wilding hid herself there on the night of the 1911 census. Mrs Carmichael took female empowerment down the more tabloid route of having a ding-dong with a dark handsome fantasist with a fetish for public knickerlessness.

As adapted by Amanda Coe, this intense melodrama boiled down to a courtroom confrontation in which the meaning of words was brutally scrutinised and manipulated by terrifying female barristers - Frances Tomelty played the one who monstered Costley, Lydia Leonard (pictured below) the nemesis of Yvonne. Moral: be careful not just what you wish for but what you say and to whom. Yvonne’s real crime turned out to be jaw-dropping gullibility. Chaplin had “don’t trust me” stencilled onto his frown lines, and shiftiness emanating in rays from those nut-brown pupils. “Please at least tell me that the sex was good,” said Susannah the sidekick (Susan Lynch) in a grating moment of levity.Lydia Leonard in Apple Tree YardAnyone with a knowledge of criminal law will be queuing up to poke holes in the trial. The most obvious anomaly was the notion of a murder suspect being released on bail. Also the dramatic revelation that Costley wasn’t in MI5 but something in compliance would have long since been disclosed by his legal counsel, rather than kept for the climax of episode three. On the plus side, the script extracted much fascinating juice out of slippery psychiatric definitions subjected to pitiless legal cross-examination.

The drama of the final episode hinged on Yvonne’s decision to make eyes at Gary, who seemed to take the whole trial rather breezily ("All OK this afternoon?" he vaguely asked her over the phone). Costley, seeing himself excluded, coldly decided to change his story and mention the bit about the titular back alley. No one does slow, spine-chilling disquiet like Watson, and she didn't half do it here. She could almost make you believe that Yvonne would do a spot of prison visiting to clear the air. Awards acting gongs all round. But on the bigger issue of emotional plausibility, and the half-baked reveal in the pillow talk at the very end, the jury's a little more split.  

rating

Editor Rating: 
3
Average: 3 (1 vote)

Share this article

Comments

Murder suspects do get released on bail.

I thought Frances Tomelty's character was a grotesque parody of a barrister. The judge would have shut her up long before her smug final comments. (Not Tomelty's fault, of course)

Would that the woman reading the verdict had been called "madam forewoman" as the author above remembers it. Instead, she was addressed by the judge as the laughably designated "madame foreperson." If your gender equality antennae are offended by the term "foreman", why on earth retain the equally discriminatory term "Madame"?

Ha. Guilty of inadvertently correcting PC gender-neutral modes of address. Thanks for pointing this out. Way better than the comments under a review of the same prog in another outlet, which is full of readers belly-aching about the ethnic casting in the final ep.

The most irritating and unbelievable drama I've watched on telly for a long time. Sadly some of my disappointment was probably due to all the pre-release hype that held this production up as at last a celebration of middle-aged women's sexuality. In many ways it just reinforced all the existing prejudices that women of a certain age would be well advised to keep a low profile otherwise look what happens to them.

Loved the ending. As you say, Jasper, gullibility. Yes, all too easy. `Kill him, smash his face in.' Course she didn't mean it (!) but he took her at her word. How many of us have done similar with less appalling consequences? An old friend once said, never believe what people say. Sometimes you do with fateful results nonetheless!

I actually took the final scene ('Kill him, smash his f*****g face in') as something that happened only in Mark's fantasy world. It was him, in prison, telling her his version of events. I've no idea what visiting hours are in HMP Holloway, but I was amazed that they seemed to coincide with Yvonne not being in court. I'd expect her to arrive back from the Old Bailey in the early evening, just in time for lock-up. And why wasn't she made to wear a brightly-coloured bib? Loved the series, though. Particularly the performances of Emily Watson and Ben Chapman.

Surely the final remark was meant to show his inability to symbolise -a Personality Disorder trait /symptom

Add comment

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters