Landscapers producer opens up on real-life true crime that inspired love story series
LANDSCAPERS is the new Sky drama which hit screens in the UK on Tuesday. Starring Olivia Colman and Daniel Thewlis as the real-life couple who seemed to live an ordinary life until it was discovered they murdered a couple years before, the cast and producers revealed the inspiration for the drama.
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Speaking to Express.co.uk and other media, writer Ed Sinclair opened up on the real story of Susan and Christopher Edwards. Recalling the moment he read about the case, the executive producer revealed it was an immediate idea of his to turn the story into a Sky drama. Episode one launched on Sky on Tuesday and introduced viewers to the strange world of the couple through the lens of a unique love story.
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Landscapers explores the relationship behind a seemingly ordinary couple who become the focus of an extraordinary investigation when a couple of dead bodies are discovered in the back garden of a house in Nottingham.
Mild-mannered husband and wife Susan Edwards (played by Olivia Colman) and Christopher Edwards (Daniel Thewlis) have been on the run from reality for over 15 years.
When Christopher makes a startling call home to his step-mother, their role in a terrible crime that remained undiscovered for over a decade begins to emerge into the light.
Speaking to media, Ed Sinclair talked about his initial idea for the drama, and why he decided to steer away from the typical true crime format.
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"I think it was several stages," he recalled.
"I think it was the news stories with the relevance of the newsletters from Gerard Depardieu, the polite emails to the police, all that sort of stuff.
"And then naturally you kind of want to make sense of, I suppose.
"And then I'm just looking for the sort of angle on it.
"You want to try and explain how these people got where they were and how the victims ended up where they were as well and I guess the real details of that."
In the real-life case, evidence was heard about how a series of letters that Christopher believed the couple had been receiving from actor Gerard Depardieu, had actually been written by Susan.
As the couple's relationship is subjected to the glare of a full police investigation, the devoted pair are separated for the first time in their marriage.
"I think it’s a love story above all else," Ed commented.
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"As Will Sharpe says – it’s a love story and you get the true crime stuff for free.
"The love story is about giving us access to our sympathy and our ability to ask ourselves those questions about where our
sympathies lie.
"It’s also about the stories we tell ourselves and those we love – the stories that help us get through those things that are not easy to understand or process.
"And there’s that uncertainty about that grey area – that they have killed people, but also that Susan was sexually abused and all the rest of it.
"And I think the love story really underpins that because Chris is the one who all along, before we knew about the story, before we knew anything, was sympathetic to Susan.
"He chose to be compassionate about what she had been through – in a sense, when he married Susan, he rescued her from her parents.
"Does his love for her also explain why he went as far as killing for her?"
Landscapers airs Tuesday, December 7 at 9pm on Sky Atlantic.
