Nothing Is as It Seems in the Life of ‘Angela Black’ — Watch a Sneak Peek (VIDEO)
Angela Black’s (Joanne Froggatt) life is nothing like it seems at the beginning of the six-episode psychological thriller dropping on Spectrum on Monday, February 7.
Instead, rather than an idyllic life, Angela’s hiding the fact that her husband, Olivier (Michiel Huisman), is nowhere near charming like he appears. She’s a victim of domestic abuse, and he is controlling and brutal. She covers up the bruises, until a private investigator, Ed (Samuel Adewunmi), approaches her and reveals Olivier’s deepest secrets, forcing Angela to face horrifying truths about his husband and betrayals — and take matters into her own hands.
Watch an exclusive clip of Ed warning Angela about Olivier — and that he “knows everything” about her — above. Why should she trust him? We asked Angela Black executive producer Chris Aird that and more.
Before getting into the marriage, what should people know about Angela going in?
Chris Aird: Angela is an apparently happily married mother of two, living a good life in a nice part of suburban London. She does some voluntary work at a kennels looking after rescue dogs. She has a great relationship with her kids. She lives in this beautiful house, and it all seems to be, on the surface, blissful, but very quickly we scratch the surface and discover this is not the case.
Talk about shaping her marriage, especially when it comes to that darkness hidden behind the closed doors.
There is a thematic of domestic violence in the show, and that was something that we wanted to explore seriously within the kind of Hitchcockian thriller genre. We did a lot of research. We worked with a charity called Women’s Aid and really looked into what it means for a woman to be not only physically assaulted, but continuously gaslit and manipulated by the people that they live with. Angela Black was written and filmed during the first lockdown over here in the UK, and one of the things that we found as we were making the show was there were more and more stories of how abusive behavior, domestic abuse was becoming a real serious issue, even more of a serious issue in lockdown than ever before. And so it felt extremely current.
Courtesy of Spectrum
There’s also a couple of other mysteries that arise during the series. So can you talk about having those pieces come together at the end while also keeping in mind that you are tackling the serious topic of domestic violence?
Angela Black was designed very much to kind of work on both levels. Obviously we wanted to make an entertaining thriller and a kind of show that wrong-foots you at every turn and you never really know what kind of ground you’re on. And I think that Jack and Harry Williams wanted to explore mental health through that lens as well and what it means and how your perception of the world can be altered if you are constantly dealing with trauma and fear and very unpleasant daily situations.
Yeah, we have got several elements. Notably, this other figure — Angela lives with Olivier, her husband, but then in Episode 1, this other figure comes into her life, Ed, this private detective. [That leads to] questions about, OK, who is this guy? Why is he interested in her? Is he telling the truth? Can he be trusted? All of these things.
Speaking of, why does Angela trust Ed even just a little bit?
There’s great chemistry between Sam Adewunmi and Jo Froggatt, and I think that helps. I think Sam’s performance is fantastic. But yeah, story-wise, I think at that point you could argue she’s looking for a friend, right? She needs someone to support her. She doesn’t really have anyone in her life. She’s got an estranged best friend who we later meet, played by Lara Rossi. And we later discover, too, she’s got a very problematic relationship with her own mother. So there aren’t really many people in her life she can turn to. I think this guy sort of appears out of nowhere and it’s that thing, isn’t it? That sometimes you just need someone to give you permission to confirm all the things you suspect are true. I think that’s what Ed does. He sort of says, “Look, you’re right. You were right all along, and I’m gonna go further than that.” And yes, it’s a leap of faith for him to ask her to trust him at the end of Episode 1 in that way.
Courtesy of Spectrum
Because of what’s going on inside Angela and Olivier’s home, what was your approach to building the world outside of it and the people in it?
Overall the show was created to feel in that kind of Hitchcockian —I don’t want to talk about Hitchcock too much, but we did use his work as a reference. And one of the things especially in movies like Rear Window and Vertigo to some extent is that sense of claustrophobia that actually this woman’s life has kind of been reduced and one of the things that Jack and Harry were very keen to kind of explore was how —certainly, we’ve tried to hint that prior to meeting Olivier, she had quite a different life. She maybe had a more ordinary life. Maybe not. Maybe she didn’t have the trappings of success and wealth in the way that she does because of Olivier’s maybe slightly nefarious business activities, but nevertheless, she had this normal life. And that now actually, because he’s so controlling, she’s not actually allowed to go much beyond this sort of gilded cage that she lives in. And yes, she’s got her voluntary job, but he keeps a very, very tight rein on her and he wants to know where she is. He wants to know what she’s doing at all times. That was something that was quite pertinent to setting up this woman who is psychologically vulnerable because of what is being done to her.
Speaking of that sense of claustrophobia, you feel it even as Angela goes to different places throughout the season.
That’s interesting. I’m glad that came across. Craig Viveiros who directed it who won lots of awards for his show Rillington Place over here a few years ago. He really had that in mind, to shoot it very carefully in that way. The other thing about the way this was shot was it was shot in lockdown, and so quite often when you go to these locations, there aren’t many people in them. It’s going to be interesting looking back on it — not that I tend to look at my old work much — it will be like, oh yeah, that’s what lockdown looked like. It actually lent itself to the aesthetic of the show, really quite spookily well.
This is a close-ended series, right? Or do you imagine possibly revisiting Angela at some point?
I love Angela. I don’t think there will be more, but I grew very fond of the character.
Angela Black, Limited Series Premiere, Monday, February 7, Spectrum
