It is October of this year. Following a tip to police in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, the bodies of Patricia Wycherley, 63, and William Wycherley, 85, were discovered buried in the back garden of their previous house. Shortly after, details about their fate surfaced, revealing a dark narrative of murder, deception, and theft. Susan Edwards and her husband, Christopher Edwards, had murdered them and buried them in their backyard. For 15 years, their remains remained undiscovered.
Landscapers, a four-part Sky Atlantic and HBOMax mini-series starring Olivia Colman and David Thewlis, is based on the terrifying story. Landscapers, on the other hand, may take some getting used to if you want your true-crime dramas serious and to the point. The quirky dark comedy and thriller, directed by Will Sharpe, is characterized by Sky as “narratively playful.”
Landscapers use significant research and hours of interviews with “direct access to the accused, who have always protested their innocence of murder” to reveal the true tale of the 1998 killings of Nottingham residents William and Patricia Wycherley. The series portrays the incredible and sometimes utterly bizarre true story in a four-episode limited series for the small screen, written by Ed Sinclair — himself an actor, writer, and real-life husband of Olivia Colman.
“As such,” goes the official Sky press release, “this is the narrative of a one-of-a-kind murder case involving four lives living on the outskirts of society,” which “turns into a thrilling and darkly hilarious examination of love and fantasy: its power and peril.”
On the May Day bank holiday weekend in 1998, Patricia and William Wycherley were shot dead at their house in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. Following the murders of Susan’s parents, Susan and Christopher began on an astonishing journey of deception, keeping Patricia and William alive on paper for nearly 15 years through a succession of letters to loved ones and forged document signatures.
Despite their daughter, Susan Edwards, withdrawing £40,000 from their account the day following their death and siphoning out a total of £245,000 from the Wycherley’s over a decade and a half, they had only one euro between them at the time of their arrests. According to the BBC, DCI Griffin remarked of the “strange pair” that “they didn’t enjoy a particularly opulent lifestyle.” “It appears that they spent the majority of their money on mementos, such as authenticated autographed artifacts from persons they respected.”
Landscapers, starring Olivia Coleman and David Thewlis, will be available to stream on HBOMax beginning Monday, December 6 in the United States, with new episodes released every week. Landscapers premieres on Sky Atlantic and NowTV on Tuesday, December 7 at 9 p.m. in the United Kingdom, with all four episodes accessible to watch right away.
