Landscapers

Rating:

The Collision at Sea: The Sinking of The Costa Concordia

Rating:

Olivia Colman, the actress who plays the role of the woman who calls sangwidges sandwiches instead of sandwiches is undoubtedly the greatest in the universe.

This is not a stage-school trick to ‘acting common’. Everything about her performance in Landscapers (Sky Atlantic) is convincing and real, even though the storytelling — by Colman’s husband Ed Sinclair — in this true crime drama is highly stylised.

Colman portrays Susan Edwards from Nottingham, who is a housewife and has killed her abusive parents, as well as her husband Chris (David Thewlis), in order to bury them in her semi’s back yard.

Colman is Susan Edwards, a housewife from Nottingham who has, with her drippy husband Chris (David Thewlis), murdered her abusive parents and buried them in the back garden of their semi

Colman plays Susan Edwards (a Nottingham housewife) who, along with Chris (David Thewlis), has murdered and buried her abusive parents in their back yard. 

Susan and Chris, who had told neighbours about the move to Blackpool by an elderly couple, sold their house and moved to France with the proceeds.

It’s now 20 years later and the money is gone. The police found the bodies, and the Edwardses are ready to surrender. Susan informs her solicitor that “my husband and me have gotten ourselves into a bit trouble.”

The luxury exile at night 

 Monica Galetti and Giles Coren visited Madeira’s Reid’s Palace, on Amazing Hotels (BBC2). 

According to the manager, guests used stay six months. 

This is what you can expect if your Covid test fails abroad. 

Despite a great supporting cast – Kate O’Flynn and Samuel Anderson as a pair of provincial plods, Daniel Rigby as their foul-mouthed police boss — this is Colman’s show.

Susan has a lot of nerves with her dry, chilblain-nosed nose and bright eyes. In a world of film stars, she lives in a dream. Writing a love letter to Chris, she signs it ‘Gerard Depardieu’ and encloses €100.

Chris takes the money out and opens it. She exclaims, “That’s a good start!”

Chris claims she is emotionally “fragile” and “sufficiently scared”. “I understand what fragile means,” a copper grumbles. It is a sign that you are in control. It means you’re the one that gets upset and lashed out.

Susan’s favourite actor is Gary Cooper — ‘a good father’, she remarks. When she dreams of scenes from High Noon and Chris being her brave sheriff, she daydreams.

Some images are designed to show classic Westerns. Susan leans against a doorway lit by the sunset and stares at her husband.

Two mounted policemen met the couple at St Pancras station to make wild West-like analogies. It seems this really did happen.

So far the crime is merely incidental. The four-parter romance, if it has to be incorporated into any genre at all, is a real romantic.

Sky Original drama Landscapers tells a unique love story involving 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

Sky Original drama Landscapers tells the story of a loving couple that becomes the subject of an exceptional investigation after a pair of bodies were found in the garden of a Nottingham home.

The Costa Concordia cruise ship listing at 80 degrees after running aground off the island of Giglio, Tuscany, northern Italy, early 14 January 2012

Following an accident off Giglio (Tuscany), the Costa Concordia cruise boat sank at 80 degrees.

Although they were killers, Susan and Chris felt more like two penguins. They nuzzled on the Eurostar together and promised never to part. . . Susan’s last euro was spent on coffees.

‘Hey! Guess what I think I saw just now in the buffet car?’ she blurted, bustling back. ‘Gerard! Yes, Gerard Depardieu!’

The Sinking Of The Costa Concordia, (C5) was not without romance. However, the documentary’s first episode (which is continuing tonight), barely mentioned it. It focused on the vivid story of the ship’s sinking, featuring terrifying footage from a phone camera of people stumbling across decks, while intercom announcements assured that this was a technical problem.

Antimo Magnotta the ship’s pianist, who saw his grand piano being ripped from its attachments by impact and sent it ‘drifting across the room’ was one of the most dramatic accounts.

Magnotta stated that everyone started to scatter around the ship like sparks after an explosion. Others swarmed the vessel’s mortuary, throwing coffins in the sea.

While disaster documentaries may seem dispassionate or mechanical, the terrifying image of pure panic was captured here.