Interview with Amanda Coe (Screenwriter of Apple Tree Yard)
What could have brought Dr. Yvonne Carmichael, a law-abiding wife and mother, an eminent scientist, into a dock at the Old Bailey about to be exposed in a highly damaging and compromising lie?
Published: 3 January 2017
For me, 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.
What is at the heart of the story of Apple Tree Yard?
For me, 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. 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, that in itself is quite radical. And although in the story her 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. It shouldn’t be necessary that that statement is radical, but it is in our culture, so I feel that in its own way it’s doing something that is fairly important.
What would you hope that a viewer would come away with from Apple Tree Yard?
Well primarily I hope that they’ll feel they were really entertained by it and they enjoyed the four hours. After that I hope it maybe it provokes a bit of debate or thought about some of the themes that it explores. Fundamentally I think that anyone who makes TV drama just really wants to grip the viewer and give them that experience that they’re having a good time watching it and that you’re wholly absorbed by the story.
How much did you work with Louise and talk with Louise through the process?
Not very much at all actually, although we got to know each other at the later stages. What was really nice and liberating was we had a meeting quite early on. Louise was very clear early on that it was a very different process and she was letting it go and trusted me. It’s good when you feel like there’s not going to be kind of any conflict or anxiety. When she read the scripts at quite a late stage she was extremely positive about them so she’s been a very supportive, generous presence in it.
Do you have a favourite scene that really stands out to you?
I think everyone saw a particular scene in the book as a stand out scene, which is when Yvonne is being questioned by a consultant who’s helping her, training her for her presentation in court, and he’s a very insensitive, young, male barrister, and his questioning of her makes you see what she’s facing in the court case, and her husband is witnessing it. Everything’s been kind of tamped down between them emotionally and Gary just snaps and pulls a knife on this guy, which is a shocking moment in the book. It’s been great seeing that because I think it works just as well as everyone hoped it would.
I was quite pleased with the scenes between Gary and Yvonne as husband and wife, because it felt there was more room to kind of shade in those moments of a long term relationship and the nuances of that, which I really enjoyed. There is a little random moment which is Yvonne and Costley, when they’re in a very sexual phase of their affair and they’re flirting. It’s all quite charged. But then we also see her in the toilet cubicle of the bar and she’s actually got some spanx on and she’s really struggling to take them off.
I enjoyed that as just a very human moment that I think only a woman could have written, that kind of performing of your sexuality and that backstage moment of the reality of how all that is performed, which is in the book as well and I think that’s what the book is all about.
