Since her breakout film role in Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves, I have studied her closely and been repeatedly impressed by her performances. The first is Emily Watson and I’m of the opinion that she is one of the UK’s most naturally endowed performers. New BBC four-parter, Apple Tree Yard, certainly had the latter down to pat but there were two distinct reasons why I willingly offered it more than a cursory glance. It takes a lot to snag my attention and a little thing called timing.

I’m generalizing wildly of course but we all have our quirks and one of mine would be a woeful attention span when anything feels more like business than pleasure. More than anything else, it all feels so dreadfully proper and dare I say a tad stuffy. Then there’s the fact that it is required to keep you gripped for as long as it runs and supply valid reasoning for tuning in at the same time next week. For starters, miss the opener and you’re left playing catch-up, something I’ll openly admit to sucking at. My issue is that an episodic TV drama commands a different level of investment than a film. Viewing figures suggest that the English are simply crying out for all the drama we can get our hands on and it’s not like we’re not generously catered for. As a rule they tend to be well-mannered, dignified, and ultimately reasonably unmemorable but I’m very much aware that this isn’t my field of expertise and also that I’m in the minority here. I may jest, but the fact remains, seldom does a week pass when a new serial dramatization doesn’t hit our screens. Indeed, there is nothing we enjoy more than a nice cup of tea, nice digestive biscuit (custard cream should we be feeling particularly risqué), and a nice bit of Sunday night TV drama to make our awfully nice lives vaguely less pedestrian.

Grey paint splatter background