TV Review: Apple Tree Yard, murky and mysterious

Apple Tree Yard.

This murky, mysterious, sexual thriller is absolutely gripping, steamy and psychotic.

Dr Yvonne Carmichael (Emily Watson), an acclaimed scientist, was the epitome it seemed of a respectable, middle class professional with a stellar career, two grown-up children and mild unassuming husband.

We first see her sitting at the head of a parliamentary select committee, proper, well spoken and utterly peaches and cream English.

As she leaves the parliamentary chamber and heads downstairs she grabs a coffee and is swiftly captivated by a seemingly disarming handsome stranger Mark Costley (Ben Chapman), a Westminster clerk he says.

Somehow he persuades her to pop down and see a special crypt in the basement.
Hot steamy sex in the gloom of the crypt against the stone wall was the beginning of an affair mostly conducted in broom closets, narrow dim alleys with none of it actually making sense.

Watson' s enigmatic face betrays very little except for a slight flush of glee on her face thrilled that at 40-something her "jelly baby" body has attracted exciting illicit sex as her marriage has become predictable and stultifying dull.

Her soft giggles and hair flicking really didn't often endear her, in fact I found her irritating in these moments ... probably meant to be.

Her breathy comments and thoughts written on her laptop in an email to her dark lover, like "sex with you is like being eaten by a wolf'', were bizarre.

It reminded me of her extraordinary performance in the movie Breaking the Waves described by the New York Times as a "raw crazy tour de force ... fusing true love with lurid exploitation and pure religious faith".

Carmichael skulks about waiting for her "wolf'' who remains a dull person revealing nothing except his mindless sexual needs and his knowledge of CCTV cameras.

This first episode kept me in hushed mode waiting for the twist and it came right at the end. Though it had felt more of the same throughout the episode raced through, always taut but you knew this woman's life was racing out of control.

It closes after more hard sex against the wall with her wolf this time in the loos at a restaurant, he disappears into the London gloom and she goes off to a work party.

And boom there it is, a nasty rape scene where she was thrown around by a work colleague which was so shocking you realise the ominous threat hanging over this programme was all too real.

I'll be watching the next episode - I am sure it will be gripping, it has that spooked feeling already.