Rotten Apple Tree

Apple Tree Yard came to a conclusion on Monday 7^th Feb with the obligatory climactic court room scene. Dr. Carmichael sat just a few yards from her co-accused who stared into his lap as details of the murder were described to the court.

There are several rules in Court room drama.

Rule one; The jury shall comprise of a dozen jobbing extras who are reasonably adept at showing emotion without actually speaking. This is a talent that is scouted for by casting directors by sitting you down and asking you to convey ‘sorrow’ or ‘relief’ or ‘like you have just opened a birthday present but found it contained some dogshit’. If you pass this you are told to sit facing the director who will hold up a series of idiot boards for you to all react appropriately at the same time. After a morning of doing this you are given your 20 quid and told to sod off. The only sound that you are allowed to utter is an audible sharp intake of breath when the ‘revelation’ occurs. If you don’t know how to do this, simply stand on an upturned plug in the middle of the night when you have a particularly light-sleeping baby in the room.

Rule two: The barrister that has been given the role as ‘baddie’ shall be a particularly spiky individual that no-one particularly likes.

Rule Three: The hero’s barrister shall be a sympathetic character who refuses to become agitated, even when things are going against them.

Either of these characters can be prosecution or defence. When the baddie is prosecuting, the hero is innocent, when defending, the hero is the victim.

Rule four:  The ‘baddie’ shall win but it will be a hollow victory.

I was hoping that the concluding episode would provide answers to the many questions that Apple Tree Yard threw up, and was also hoping that this would make it one of the best dramas ever screened on British Television because the answers would have had to be sooo good. That this classy, well-adjusted and attractive authority on the Human Genome would simply fuck a complete stranger in a cupboard because she found him exciting pushed plausibility to the very limits. As no other explanation was ever offered, we had to accept, not only this, but that also, the same woman would submit to an horrific rape ordeal and refuse to report it because of the spectre of this sordid affair. The whole thing may have more believable if the rape had been more of a ‘date rape’ scenario. She may have felt more responsible for the unsolicited advances and eventual assault by her colleague, George, if it had been in a ‘shoulder-to-cry-on’ encounter. One look at the bruises that followed the attack would have swayed the most dubious of investigators and led to a swift prosecution without any of the sordid revelations that followed the vengeful murder some months later.

In the event, the details Yvonne and Mark’s affair came out anyway, followed by the upturned plug gasp of the jobbing extras. Now, I have never been accused of murder, nor ever stood trial for anything, nor had to enlist the assistance of barristers to represent me, but…

Surely, when the prosecution is given some undeniable piece of evidence that is quite obviously a fact that is going to be new to their opposite number on the bench, the two barristers meet up in some over-priced restaurant in the Temple and have a little chat. The new evidence is laid before the adversary, who has to suck it up and pay for the meal before he goes back and tells his client what a mess of things she has made. I mean, that’s how it should work. Instead of this gentlemanly outcome, Mrs Baddie the prosecution barrister contrived to guide the witness, our good Doctor, up a pathway that eventually led to Apple Tree Yard. Yes, Mark had done the dirty on her and their story fell like a game of Garden Jenga on a particularly gusty heath. Gasps were heard from everyone in court and the usually unruffled defending barrister virtually banged his bewigged head on the desk in front of him. You could almost hear him let out a pained cry and screw up his 1500 page summing up as Yvonne stood with tears in her eyes admitting she had made a cock-up by not mentioning the cock up.

You may want to watch Apple tree Yard. I won’t give away the ending. I can’t really be bothered to go over the whole banality of it all. See rule four, that should help.