Sex and the middle aged woman ... BBC spices up Sundays
MOURINHO. AND.KLOPP KEPT.APART IN.DIVE.ROW
JOSE MOURINHO and Jurgen Klopp were involved in a furious bust-up yesterday after the Liverpool manager accused his rival of trying to get Roberto Firmino sent off at Old Trafford. The clash came towards the end of a 1-1 draw between Manchester United and their old enemy when Ander Herrera pulled Firmino back by the shirt and went down clutching his face as the Brazil forward lashed out. Fourth official Craig Pawson had to separate Mourinho and Klopp as they confronted each other on the touchline, with the German angrily rejecting the offer of a handshake. Referee Michael Oliver booked both players, and Klopp said: ‘He (Mourinho) wanted the minimum of a yellow card. We could not have the same opinion. ‘I think the ref whistled before anything else happened. Roberto is a footballer from head to toe and he wanted to stay in the game. ‘That was a yellow card for
FROM Poldark’s glistening muscles and The Night Manager star Tom Hiddleston’s derriere to countless sex scenes in War And Peace, Sunday night TV has certainly been sexed up.
But while the BBC’s latest offering is set to be no less steamy, the broadcaster is taking a rather different approach this time.
For the lead character involved in a raunchy liaison is not another strapping hunk or a young beauty – but a middle-aged woman.
In Apple Tree Yard, Emily Watson, 50, plays 52-year- old Dr Yvonne Carmichael, a normally strait-laced and highly successful scientist who embarks on a passionate and reckless affair.
And one lustful scene shows Yvonne ‘with her tights around her ankles’ enjoying a tryst with her lover Mark Costley, played by 47year- old Ben Chaplin, in a crypt below the House of Commons.
Miss Watson said: ‘Just the fact that the protagonist is a sexualised woman in her 50s is a good, feminist statement. This idea that female sexuality is the preserve of 22-yearolds is just absurd.
‘If anything, your sexuality blos-
‘Sexuality doesn’t die with your age’
soms during your late 40s and 50s.’ The mother of two explained that she and Chaplin discussed the scene in detail before they were filmed to ensure it was believable.
She told Stella magazine: ‘ Ben and I decided that we were absolutely going to make those sex scenes look believable: really plot the sexual progress of our characters out beforehand, instead of just fumbling about the way you do when you’re younger.’
Speaking about her character, Miss Watson said: ‘I am 52. I have status and gravitas – when I don’t have my tights round my ankles in a secluded chapel beneath the Houses of Parliament, that is.’
In a different interview with The Observer, Miss Watson discussed how actresses do not get shown in sex scenes once they reach a certain age, and said she thought she had reached that point.
She said: ‘I guess when I first read [the script] I thought “really?”
‘I mean I’ve been described in the press before as a character actor who gets laid, which I think is a great description, but as the years go by you get laid less and less on screen and then you sort of stop ... And then suddenly here I am. It was pretty cool although I did have to kind of swallow a few times when I read the script.’
Apple Tree Yard director Jessica Hobbs said she was pleased her fourpart thriller addresses the issue of middle-aged sexuality head on.
She said: ‘I get offered a lot of relationship dramas but it’s very rare to find something that’s so central to the age you are and the experiences you’re having.
‘The appeal with Apple Tree Yard was that it’s a story about a woman of a certain age and I loved that because your sexuality doesn’t die with your age. You don’t have to apologise for it.’
Apple Tree Yard, an adaptation of Louise Doughty’s bestselling novel, follows a number of recent sexually explicit BBC dramas. War and Peace, aired in January last year, was quickly nicknamed Phwoar and Peace for its steamy scenes, even showing an incestuous relationship between a brother and sister.
The Night Manager followed in February, showing Hiddleston bare his bottom as he had sex with costar Elizabeth Debicki against a wall. In June, BBC2 aired explicit romps in the series Versailles, and more recently viewers were confronted with graphic scenes in Christmas mini-series The Witness For The Prosecution, an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s short story.
Apple Tree Yard begins next Sunday on BBC1 at 9pm.