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Apple Tree Yard stars Emily Watson as Dr Yvonne Carmichael (pictured), a married 52-year-old scientist whose life changes when she sleeps with a stranger

Yes, it may only be February but Apple Tree Yard is already shaping up to be one of this year’s most contentious drama series.

The BBC1 four-parter, adapted from the Louise Doughty novel, stars Emily Watson as Dr Yvonne Carmichael, a married 52-year-old scientist whose life changes when she sleeps with a stranger.

‘I used to be a civilised woman,’ she says in the opening scenes, as she is driven towards court wearing a pair of handcuffs (and not in a Fifty Shades kind of way).

Apple Tree Yard has already caused controversy and divided opinion. Partly because the brooding, claustrophobic atmosphere has alienated those looking for the usual sexy older woman romp: larrikin Bridget Jones losing her knickers in the Nespresso machine while making post-coital coffee for Darcy, perhaps. 

Shirley Valentine feeling all cosy as she eats calamari at her beachside table.

Forget all that. This isn’t like that at all.

For a start, it doesn’t pander to the popular modern fairytale that women can have endless sexual freedom without fear of repercussions — or kowtow to the cherished myth that if anything goes wrong, it is never her fault.

The truth is that what you do and the choices you make matter, and sometimes they might matter for ever.

Yvonne’s moment of madness tilts the axis of her safe, wooden-salad-bowl world and she knows, even as she spins off into the darkness, that she is responsible — though not, of course, for the shocking rape at the end of the first episode, which has already caused some upset.

Several viewers and at least one rape charity have complained to the BBC. But how do people want sexual assault conveyed — wafty music and off-screen screams? I hate the abundant on-screen depiction of violence against women but here, for once, we had a rape that really was integral to the drama and faithful to the book.

It was short, brutish and horrific, yet there was no nudity and nothing gratuitous. Most importantly, it wasn’t smoked at the edges with the repellent tease of soft porn; no lascivious hint of rakishly dishevelled bra straps and possible secret enjoyment here, thanks all the same.

Apple Tree Yard has already caused controversy and divided opinion and the shocking rape at the end of the first episode, which has already caused some upset

The aftermath, too, seemed grim and true; torn tights and pooling bruises, plus Yvonne’s dawning awareness of what her drunkenness might imply to others, now and in the future.

It certainly shows up the fuss about the supposed rape scene in last year’s Poldark for the silly nonsense it was, Elizabeth with her pompadour askew, pillowy lips trembling like raspberry jellies, terrified she might break a fingernail on Ross Poldark’s boy-band curls.

Sometimes we should all calm down and accept that dramatists need to emphasise an ordeal has taken place and a woman has truly suffered, not just undergone a slo-mo inconvenience on an office carpet, or a smoulder on the linen sheets of a bygone age.

And if rape charities were complaining about that, they won’t like what is coming up next in Apple Tree Yard. Least of all the moments when two female characters are called upon to give sexual testimony in court. As they do so, viewers are led to understand that some of the jurors lose sympathy with the women, as their expressions curdle with disgust.

I have seen all four episodes of Apple Tree Yard and if Emily Watson doesn’t win a sackful of awards for her still, spare portrayal of the troubled doctor, then I will gladly give back my spare rib. There are moments when slow realisations dapple across her face like scudding clouds, sometimes she puts her head in her hands as if it were heavier than lead.

In her world, men are beastly, other women are not always warm and supportive, the law is inviolable and dreadful responsibility is hers.

Apple Tree Yard is written by a woman, directed by a woman, produced by a woman and features a woman in a central role who portrays the equivocality of a modern woman who is tired of always behaving and doing the right thing.

What is particularly notable is that it is unsparing drama that, for once, bends to no politically correct doctrine and doesn’t lard the action with feminist-approved tropes. No quarter or special treatment is given to female characters, who neither seek victim status nor are awarded it.

It’s almost a miracle, because most TV and film drama today comes freighted with the weight of politically correct expectation. We all have to suffer this in case — God forbid — a woman gets blamed for something, or an eight-year-old will cry into her pillowcase if the next Dr Who isn’t a woman.

What Apple Tree Yard shows is that everyone, even women, must sink or swim in their own sea of stories. And I liked it because it was real.

A remake that makes my heart sink 

Sandra Bullock (pictured)  is set to star in the all-female reboot of Ocean’s Eleven

Last week I was in New York, trying my best not to get caught up in any women’s march. Impossible, as it turned out.

‘Get off the damn sidewalk or join the damn protest,’ a terrifying matriarch bellowed at me, somewhere near Trump Tower. Quite good life advice, I thought, scurrying away from the massed squeal of ‘pussyhats’ towards the Upper East Side.

But there was no peace there, either. Along Fifth Avenue were the unmistakable signs of Hollywood: lorries, food wagons, people with clipboards looking important. I had stumbled across the film set for Ocean’s Eight, the all-female reboot of Ocean’s Eleven. 

That, as Clooney fans might recall, was the 2001 heist movie that starred Brad Pitt and George as criminal masterminds.

My heart sank. It sank without trace, in fact, like the last all-female Hollywood reboot — the abysmal Ghostbusters, which took a classic comedy with four guys and turned them into four gals.

I suppose we are meant to feel a sense of emancipation at these she-films. However, it is hard to shake the suspicion that Hollywood will only bankroll all-women films if clever all-men have established the genre first. Female ensembles remain too financially and artistically risky to consider without the gold-plated security of a previously tested, box office-proof all-male one.

The criminal she-cast includes Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett and Helena Bonham Carter, who has been made to dye her hair blonde for the role. Helen’s hair! She looks like a miniature guardsman in a sun-bleached busby. Surely it’s a look that can only work if she is playing a character called Gangsta Tweetie Pie?

Still, it’s all a bit depressing. I feel the same about all-women films as I do about all-women shortlists. Which is that they diminish instead of enable. And ultimately do us all a disservice.

The Second Coming would come second to this... 

Jay Z and Beyonce live like a king and queen, in a life encrusted with emeralds and yachts and gold-plated importance.

This week’s announcement that Queen Bey is pregnant with ye royal twins could not be passed off with a newspaper announcement or anything so everyday. 

There had to be nude pictures. And a bizarre photoshoot, orchestrated by a artist slash sculptor slash photographer Awol Erizku.

Beyonce announced her pregnancy this week with a bizarre photoshoot, orchestrated by a artist slash sculptor slash photographer Awol Erizku

I can just imagine his instructions. ‘Beyonce, sit in front of the wall of flowers. Do you really need that dress? Take it off, sister! This is a baby announcement after all. 

Get into your bra and your big pants. Yeah, the burgundy bra and the silky blue knickers, the ones that look like they come from a supermarket. I know! The green netting on the head! Put the green netting on the head!’ he would shout. Awol by name, awol by nature.

Could this be any more grandiose? It makes Baby Jesus look like an overlooked afterthought. The Second Coming would come second. And what on earth will happen when the babies are actually born?

Sorry Kate, disrobing isn't empowering 

Kate Moss has just posed naked for W magazine (pictured)

Excuse me, but is anyone out there actually keeping their clothes on this week? Even game old gal Kate Moss has just posed naked for W magazine.

She is almost totally in the nip, full frontal, her entire coochy-coo out there like M&S had never invented the cotton-rich high-leg. 

Apparently Kate is sending out an important message for their Powerful Woman issue — which is that any 43-year-old woman can look this good, with equal amounts of judicious airbrushing and a quart of Mac Face & Body foundation.

I just worry about what kind of message Kate and Beyonce’s pix send out to young women like Vicky Balch.

She is the 21-year-old who lost her leg in the Alton Towers crash two years ago. Since then, Vicky has had her low points and even considered suicide. Now that she has her confidence back, she has ‘empowered’ herself by posing naked.

Why has taking your clothes off come to represent strength and feminist power? Vicky’s courage shows every time she steps out of her front door and gets on with her life. She doesn’t need to get her kit off to prove to me that she is brave — and beautiful.

Does Diane have an allergy? Only to principles 

Diane Abbott (pictured) missed the Brexit Bill vote in Parliament this week claiming she was unwell

Diane Abbott had one job to do this week — to vote in Parliament on the Brexit Bill, on one of the most historic days for our democracy.

However, there was a problem. It was an electorally inconvenient vote for Diane, who did not want to follow the whip, nor disobey her ex-lover Jeremy Corbyn.

A moral conundrum, yes, but perhaps not a tricky one for the woman who opposed private schools but sent her son to one anyway.

Diane said she was too sick to vote. Her doctor was puzzled.

Any allergies? Only to principles.

Johnny Depp earned £200 million just from the Pirates Of The Caribbean series but is still in financial difficulty

As actors gather in Hollywood to out-anti-Trump each other during the Trumpety-Trump awards season, here is one issue of injustice and unfairness that they never address — the gasping amount of money they all earn.

Their out-of-control salaries. The fact they get paid millions for remembering their lines and not bumping into the furniture, while others scrimp for a hill of beans. If that is not unethical and unequal, what is?

Look at Johnny Depp. He earned £200 million just from the Pirates Of The Caribbean series. No wonder the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston scramble for their own lucrative superhero franchises.

Despite his riches, Johnny is in financial difficulty, with his management company claiming he lives an ‘ultra-extravagant lifestyle’ that has ‘outpaced his earnings’.

What has he spent it on? More than £59.6 million went on French castles, private islands, a record label, 45 luxury cars . . . and a London to Manchester train ticket, bought the day before travel.

Pray for Johnny! The poor sucker is down to his last hundred mill!