The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Colman captivated by new true crime drama
She’s an Oscar winner with countless other impressive accolades to her name – Emmys, Baftas, Golden Globes – so when Olivia Colman describes a TV project as a “sumptuous piece of drama” you’re inclined to want to watch it.
Add to that it’s a project made alongside her husband, the producer and screenwriter Ed Sinclair.
The Crown actress, 47, who in 2019 landed the best actress Oscar for her role as Queen Anne in The Favourite, joins Fargo and Harry Potter actor David Thewlis to play middleaged couple Susan and Christopher Edwards in Sky’s darkly comical true crime drama Landscapers.
It’s a gripping narrative: a couple with a penchant for classic film memorabilia, who appeared to live a secluded and sedentary life inside their modest
Dagenham council flat. But they had shot dead Susan’s parents, William and Patricia Wycherley, at point blank range and buried the bodies in the back garden of the Wycherleys’ Mansfield home over the 1998 May bank holiday weekend.
In the years that followed, the bodies lay undiscovered beneath the lawn with not a single person alerted to their disappearance.
Meanwhile, their daughter and son-in-law had siphoned off their life savings.
With the screenplay written by Colman’s husband, the project was something of a family affair.
“He was fascinated by it,” she said. “Ed had described this amazing thing he’d read in The Guardian initially – and all the memorabilia. He saw it very sympathetically from Susan’s point of view and was interested in approaching everything from the point of view of someone who had committed a crime which was unusual.”
Darker revelations begin to unravel after the pair finally confess to the crimes. The series sees the Edwardses fall into a fantasy world, casting themselves as Hollywood heroes while fending off their real-life guilt.
Colman has become the toast of Hollywood thanks to roles like her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in lavish Netflix series The Crown.
Her upcoming role in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Elena Ferrante adaptation, The Lost Daughter, is already generating buzz ahead of award season.
How did she find working alongside her husband of more than 20 years?
“Once he’d written it then the hard thing is
handing it over to a creative team who are going to also put their stamp on it,” she said.
“It’s a learning curve but we sort of left each other alone – he has his job and I have my job. So for example he’s seen all of it but he’s never told me what he thinks of my performance.”
Thewlis, 58, said Sinclair’s script gripped him.
He explained: “It was one of the best things I’ve ever had come through to my inbox. I read it all in one go. It just read like a wonderful book.”
Described as a crime of passion by the couple in court, Susan told police she was sexually abused by her father until the age of 11, with her mother being complicit.
She also claimed her mother had turned the gun on her father before confessing that she was having an affair with
Christopher in a bid to provoke Susan.
With the Edwards both serving life sentences for murder, Sinclair approached Susan’s solicitor, Darrell Ennis-gayle.
“He was able to introduce me to Susan and persuade her that I was trustworthy,” said Sinclair, who described how he “started a correspondence” with the couple individually.
“I wasn’t allowed to ask them about the crime or anything like that. There were a few letters that were censored and never made it through because it touched a little too closely on that.
“So most letters were about their background, relationship, her childhood, when they met, when they married, all that stuff.”
Having met through a dating agency in 1984, during their marriage the Edwards compiled an extensive collection of autographs and iconic movie posters from the golden age of cinema.
Susan also claimed to have a collection of correspondence with French actor Gerard Depardieu, but it later came to light that the alleged 14 years of letters had been entirely faked, French stamps and all.
Their deceit ended after a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions arrived, congratulating William on his 100th birthday and calling for an in-person assessment.
Eventually fleeing to France before running out of money and ultimately confessing to the crime, the Edwards asked police to finance their Eurostar tickets home in exchange for their quiet surrender.
■ Landscapers is on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW.