THE DELUDED (LANDSCAPERS)

Just when you think ITV has cornered the market in dramatising real crime stories, along comes Sky Atlantic and HBO.

'Landscapers' is inspired by the murders of William and Patricia Wycherley in Nottinghamshire.

Olivia Colman and David Thewlis play Susan and Christopher Edwards who were convicted in 2014 of their murders after 15 years on the run.

However 'Landscapers' is unlike any dramatisation of a true crime story that you have seen.

Written by Olivia Colman's husband Ed Sinclair and directed by Will Sharpe of 'Giri/Haji' fame, it is a highly stylised account of the couple's life on the run and their eventual imprisonment.

At the beginning of the four episode miniseries, Colman's Susan and Thewlis' Christopher are struggling to make ends meet in France.

He attends job interviews but does not enough fluency in French to be able to follow what they are saying.

She spends money on movie memorabilia they cannot afford to buy.

As financial realities begin to bite, Christopher rings his stepmother Kathryn Edwards' Tabitha back in England to get money but in the course of the conversation admits to having buried his in-laws in the back garden.

She passes the information on to the police who head to the Mansfield home of Felicity Montagu's Patricia and David Hayman's William Wycherley, now occupied by Sleaford Mods frontman Jason Williamson's character and his family.

Digging up the garden, Kate O'Flynn's Detective Constable Emma Lancing and Samuel Anderson's Detective Constable Paul Wilkie discover a deep grave containing the Wycherleys' bodies.

They engage Christopher Edwards via email to see if the couple would be willing to be questioned.

At first, the Edwards rebuff the police efforts to draw them back to England.

However with all financial options in France quickly running out, they relent and decide to return to London on the Eurostar.

On the journey home, they agree a story for when they face police questioning.

As DCs Lancing and Wilkie try to prise the details of what really happened during separate interrogations, will Susan and Christopher's joint account of why they went on the run start to show cracks?

Rather than dutifully follow the events as they unfolded, Sharpe and Sinclair take a very unconventional approach to the story.

Building on the Edwards' love of cinema - primarily Gary Cooper Westerns and Gerard Depardieu movies - there are flights of fancy as the couple's story is presented like the movies they love.

 

And so there are references to Westerns like 'High Noon,' Francois Truffaut's 'Le Dernier Metro' and when their case goes to trial 'Judgment at Nuremberg'.

There is a sense of skittishness about the miniseries as if it were a Charlie Kaufman or Wes Anderson film and that will not be to everyone's cup of tea - especially those who like their true crime drama to follow the dots.

In dramatising real life, there's always an inherent risk that you will annoy the real life protagonists or the relatives of those depicted.

'Landscapers' seems destined to wind some people up.

Not surprisingly it has.

However it is an intriguing take on the Mansfield murders, anchored by two strong, yet unusual performances from Colman and Thewlis which very much present the Edwards as a mild mannered couple embroiled in the darkest of scenarios.

As the drama unfolds, your sympathies for the couple are undermined by the cracks in the story and they seem to be living in a world of their own.

But there are other little, oddly endearing quirks like a pretend penpal relationship with Gerard Depardieu.

Thewlis and Colman understandably dominate the drama but O'Flynn and Anderson are good value.

So too are Daniel Rigby as their irascible boss Detective Chief Inspector Tony Collier and Dipo Ola as Susan's solicitor, Douglas Hylton.

Edwards, Montagu and Hayman make fleeting appearances in various episodes.

However ultimately 'Landscapers' is a visually interesting, slightly absurdist take on the true crime genre - even if it does sail close to being pretentious.

Some episodes are stronger than others - the final two in particular.

However it is one of those shows that viewers will admire but possibly not really love.

If it achieves one thing, though, it will be to awaken interest in an unusual murder case that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

('Landscapers' aired on Sky Atlantic on December 6-27, 2021)

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