Apple Tree Yard, BBC1: cast, locations, and three other things to know about the Emily Watson thriller

The dark psychological thriller is here to spice up your Sunday night
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Ben Travis27 January 2017

If Call the Midwife isn’t your kind of thing, the BBC have another Sunday night drama that might pique your interest.

Apple Tree Yard is a dark and gripping psychological thriller that’s likely to win over fans of Doctor Foster.

Here are five things you need to know about the show.

1) It’s based on Louise Doughty’s novel

British author Louise Doughty’s Apple Tree Yard was published in 2013, when it became a bestseller thanks to its gripping plot and central mystery: what did respected geneticist Dr Yvonne Carmichael do to find herself in the docks?

2) It’s about an affair that spirals out of control

Apple Tree Yard is primarily a courtroom drama, telling the events behind Carmichael’s appearance in court.

It charts her affair with a stranger she meets in the Houses of Parliament – as her actions ripple outwards and lead to an act of violence.

“We’re very familiar with procedural stories or thrillers, or kind of very dark romantic stories, but we’re very unused to seeing those stories told from the point of a 50 year old woman,” says screenwriter Amanda Coe. “That in itself is quite radical.”

3) It stars Emily Watson

The renowned British actress has worked with the likes of Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton, Lars von Trier, and Charlie Kaufman, and she takes the lead role here as Dr Carmichael.

It’s casting that author Doughty certainly approved of.

“Yvonne is a character who has to have so many elements to her: you have to believe she's a convincing research scientist, so she has to have real intellectual heft and gravitas, while at the same time believing she would do something utterly reckless and passionate and out of character,” she said.

“It's a very complex part and Emily Watson pulls it off magnificently.”

Also starring are Ben Chaplin, Mark Bonnar, Adeel Akhtar, and more.

Ben Chaplin in Apple Tree Yard 
BBC/Kudos/Nick Briggs

4) It was filmed around London and Buckinghamshire

The story is specifically set in London, which was used for much of the shooting, as well as nearby Buckinghamshire.

However, the series was notably not able to film inside the House of Commons – something that Watson attributes to the sexual politics of the piece.

“If Yvonne was a man, I think we would definitely have been allowed to film in the Houses of Parliament,” she said, “which I think says a lot about gender politics.”

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5) It deals with themes of sexuality

This probably isn’t one to watch with your parents / children [delete as appropriate]. Yvonne’s sexually charged affair isn’t shied away from, and is a key theme of the story.

“The heart of the story is a woman who finds herself at a crossroads in her life, which is quite common in mid-life, and essentially ends up having her sexuality put on trial,” says Coe.

“Although in the story [Yvonne’s] sexuality becomes problematic because of what happens, her own relationship with her sexuality isn’t a problem, it’s not like she’s questioning in any kind of agonised way initially that she’s a sexual being. I really like that about the book and I think a lot of readers responded to that.”

BBC One, Sunday, 9pm

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