BBC women need Kidman if they want equal pay

TTHE Big Family Cooking Showdown pits 16 families and their exotic cuisines against each other in a real sizzler.

here was a timely – and potentially awkward – exchange as BBC2’s crime thriller Top Of The Lake began its second series last night.

Addressing the claims of her combative, 17-year-old, adopted daughter Mary that feminism is irrelevant to young women, the middle-aged, feminist academic Julia asked: “What about equal pay?”

Luckily, there wasn’t time to dwell upon that thorny issue – there was far too much other stuff going on.

Suffice it to say that if the BBC’s female employees had Julia in their corner they would SIMMER FUN Zoe and co-host Nadiya JUDGES Locatelli, Shrager be celebrating parity by Christmas. She is a formidable character, and played with scenestealing gusto by an almost unrecognisable Nicole Kidman.

By the looks of things, Julia will be needing that inner strength over the next few weeks because her life is about to be turned upside down. Well, even more upside down than it already was – she recently walked out on her childhood sweetheart husband to set up home with her lesbian lover.

Mary’s birth mother was back in Sydney and was very keen to track her down. And given that she is Detective Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss), she would probably have found her even without that handy Thank You For Having Me letter she had received from Mary. (Stand down, Davina.)

Here’s where it gets complicated. Griffin’s latest murder case involves

FORMIDABLE Kidman as Julia a body in a suitcase washed up on Bondi Beach. We had seen that same suitcase earlier. First, at the seedy brothel where Mary’s creepy older boyfriend Puss teaches English to the sex workers, and, second, on a cliff from where Puss’s equally creepy pal was dropping it into the ocean. Confused? I was, too. Fortunately I have two pieces of news. One, there’s nothing else on the telly this weekend. And, two, all six episodes of Top Of The Lake are already available to watch on iPlayer.