Oh, come on Claire Foy! If you find acting out sex on screen ‘the grimmest thing you can do’, why agree to play the part of Britain’s best-known scandalous woman, Margaret, Duchess of Argyll?

Claire was a highly sought after actress following her success in The Crown as young Queen Elizabeth. She can’t have needed the work, so why accept the part and then moan about sex scenes in a story about sex?

The tale in question is the BBC’s big, must watch, ‘proper’ drama over the holiday season, beginning on Boxing Day. It’s called A Very British Scandal and tells of the infamous Margaret, best known for a string of lovers and a well-known set of Polaroids which were revealed during a much-publicised divorce case in 1963.

The Headless Man is the most popular of all the photos. It showed the Duchess naked on her knees while pleasuring the man (whose identity has not been revealed) and was known as The Headless Man. The judge, granting the Duke’s divorce, described Margaret as ‘a completely promiscuous woman whose sexual appetite could only be satisfied with a number of men’.

Claire Foy (pictured), who is playing Duchess of Argyll in new BBC drama A Very British Scandal, has revealed that she is not entirely happy with the way her sex scenes are filmed

Claire Foy (pictured), who is playing Duchess of Argyll in new BBC drama A Very British Scandal, has revealed that she is not entirely happy with the way her sex scenes are filmed

It’s not, of course, the first time Claire Foy has performed sex scenes, notably in the film Wreckers in 2011 and in BBC Two’s White Heat in 2012. I do have some sympathy when she says, ‘basically, you feel exploited when you’re a woman and you’re having to perform fake sex on screen’.

Nevertheless, as long as sexual relations remain a frequent and increasingly explicit part of just about every film and drama that’s served up for us to watch, isn’t it just part of her job?

There’s no doubt there’s been considerable effort, since the MeToo movement gained such traction, to make these performances easier for actors and actresses alike.

Maria Schneider, a 1972 actress, described how she was humiliated when Bernardo Bertolucci in Paris included a Marlon brando-related rape scene with butter. It was not in the script, she said. It is unlikely that a woman performing today would be treated with such disrespect by intimacy coordinators.

Professional sex choreographers can be hired to guide these scenes frame-by-frame. Performers are asked how far they are prepared to go, how much they’re ready to show and directors must follow rules.

Claire Foy doesn’t like the way she is filmed in her sex scenes. In her case she felt ‘it’s sort of amazing the things that they are able to say that always just make me feel like a 12-year-old’.

Jenni Murray (pictured) said when she sits down to watch the drama, she will only be thinking of Claire and how uncomfortable she was feeling

Jenni Murray (pictured) said when she sits down to watch the drama, she will only be thinking of Claire and how uncomfortable she was feeling

The Duchess is a slut, and she’s not happy. She’s right. It is wrong to call a woman a “slut” if she has had sex with several partners. A man who is in the same situation would be called a lothario. Maybe a lothario.

Boxing Day was a great day for me. I also looked forward to the next two nights of watching a drama that I hoped would be as good or better than the A Very English Scandal, which I saw about Jeremy Thorpe.

It would, I thought, be a huge advance on the usual familiar and often giddy menu of Christmas such as Call the Midwife and Mrs. Brown’s Boys.

When I get up to view what I thought would be an enjoyable bit of television escapism, I will only think of Claire and the discomfort she felt. It kind of spoils the illusion.

  • I know, from studying research in the U.S., about the damage to a child’s self-esteem caused by fictional characters who are rubbished for being fat or ugly. As someone who is not inclined to believe in woke ideas and as a former supporter of The Beano’s, I applaud the Bash Street Kid’s changes. Fatty has become Freddy, and Spotty now is Scotty. Quite right.

I am baffled by young people who insist on safe spaces and don’t want to be triggered by reading classics such as Kidnapped or Romeo And Juliet. Why can they not see that, from as young as 11 — as we learned from the pop star Billie Eilish, who says unsolicited porn from that age ‘destroyed’ her brain — the least safe space for them is their phone? 

I’d ground wills too, your majesty 

Jenni Murray said she knows how the Queen feels about her grandson flying a helicopter containing his entire family. Pictured: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with their children

Jenni Murray said she knows how the Queen feels about her grandson flying a helicopter containing his entire family. Picture: The Duke and Duchess with their children 

It is hard to imagine how Queen Elizabeth feels when her grandson takes off in a helicopter carrying his entire family. It seems that you are sleeping through the night. Although William may be an expert and competent pilot, I don’t trust the safety of the chosen transport mode.

He was a good friend who thought that he could become a pilot by helicopter. In line to take part in a flight, he realized he had to go to the bathroom. His helicopter was supposed to have taken off, but it crashed into the ground killing all aboard.

A young reporter like me narrowly missed an opportunity to film some footage of an aerial rescue. In Weymouth harbour, all the crew members died.

There are no helicopters in my life and William is the best judge of that. You are the only one who can ensure that the monarchy’s future is secure.

You won’t get A fancy cat for me Plastic carrier

Jenni admitted that she's dreading the moment when she has to persuade her cat to enter her carrier prior to setting off for Christmas on the South Coast

Jenni admitted that she’s dreading the moment when she has to persuade her cat to enter her carrier prior to setting off for Christmas on the South Coast

I asked Suu, my sometimes-psycho cat, how she’d feel about me taking her shopping in a see-through trolley on wheels — like Kate Beckinsale. My only description of her loud, yowling voice is short shrift. Before I leave for South Coast Christmas, I fear the day when she will refuse to get into her car seat and strap herself in the back with Frida and Madge, her chihuahuas. Traffic please be gentle.

Did Emma deserve to win?

Did Emma Raducanu deserve to be Sports Personality Of The Year with only one major achievement behind her — the U.S. Open?

At 19, she’s pretty, personable and looks good in diamonds and designer clothes, but Dame Sarah Storey has been winning gold medals in swimming and cycling for years. With 28 Paralympic gold medals and 17 gold medals to her credit, she is the British Paralympian with the highest success rate (by total gold medals)

Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson described her as ‘amazing — the greatest paralympic sportswoman ever who never gives up.’

It’s the sport that should matter, not a youthful, attractive, but still inexperienced personality.