# Apple Tree Yard (2017)

> A genetic scientist's reckless mid-life affair with a Westminster official spirals into a dark criminal entanglement when she discovers he is a spy.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/61084

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 4
- Episode runtime: 58 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, mystery, thriller
- Network: BBC One
- Cast: Emily Watson, Ben Chaplin, Mark Bonnar, Steven Elder, Jack Hamilton, Susan Lynch, Lydia Leonard, Olivia Vinall
- TMDB rating: 7.2/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5336698/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: mild
- Tone: brooding, tense, cold, melancholic, adult

## What critics say

Audience reception is positive, praising the taut psychological drama and its lead performance while the story's escalation into darkness divides some viewers.

## Synopsis

Apple Tree Yard (2017) is a British four-episode limited series created for BBC One, a psychological thriller with mystery undercurrents. Emily Watson plays Yvonne Carmichael, a genetic scientist whose reckless affair with Mark Costley (Ben Chaplin), a Westminster paper pusher, takes a dangerous turn when she realises he is a spook. Mark Bonnar plays her husband Gary Carmichael, whose steady life becomes the backdrop against which her secret unravels, and Susan Lynch and Lydia Leonard add pressure from the margins. The engine of the story is Yvonne's desire and her attempts to keep her respectable life intact while the affair pulls her into a criminal path she cannot easily leave. Each episode tightens the grip of the secret, with domestic scenes of marriage and family giving way to tense confrontations and moral reckoning. Set in contemporary London and the corridors of Westminster, the series is an unhurried, adult, brooding study of obsession and longing, with a cold, controlled tone and a sense of quiet dread. Viewers who enjoyed the espionage-tinged romance of The Night Manager or the psychological unravelling of The Fall will find resonance here. Its compact run keeps the story taut from first episode to last.

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