Patronising, clichéd and corny: BBC1’s Gold Digger reviewed

Some last taboos, it seems, can remain last taboos no matter how frequently they’re confronted. Grief, the menopause, masturbation, mental illness are all routinely described that way whenever they get depicted on television — i.e. quite often. But perhaps the sturdiest last taboo of the lot is that older women can have sexual feelings: something that appears to come as a rather patronising surprise to TV folk every time they tackle it — i.e. quite often.

The latest example of such bravery is Gold Digger (BBC1, Tuesday), a drama keen for us to understand that a woman of 60 can still be both desirable and a goer — although not so keen as to cast a woman of 60 in the role. Instead, 54-year-old Julia Ormond plays Julia Day, a recent divorcée whose 60th birthday begins with all three of her grown-up children bailing out of the celebration dinner she’d arranged.