“My journey through life has not been an easy one,” confessed Shirley Ballas in the opening minutes of BBC Two’s “Womanhood”. Over the course of the 90-minute programme, the 61-year-old Strictly judge described the intense and lifelong pressure she had felt to “be a certain weight, look a certain way”. You could see the crumpling shame against which she struggled to hold her frame as she described how her ex-husband had controlled her life. When she was three months pregnant with their son, her husband (not a midwife) ruled she was too heavy and hid a cockroach in a doughnut she’d bought. She has not touched a doughnut from that day to this. Yet Ballas is the woman most resistant to the progressive feminist ideas debated in the programme. 

The format felt a little tired. Six women, spending a week living together in a swanky manor house in Leeds to discuss the shifting status of women over the past 50 years. Big Sister, if you will. The ballroom star was joined by Newsnight’s Kirsty Wark (66) Ann Summers CEO Jacqueline Gold CBE (61), 80s pop star Sinitta (58), comedian Suzi Ruffell (35) and author/influencer Chidera Eggerue (26).

Over the course of the week the women were encouraged to share their personal experiences and meet people who “challenge their views on consent, coercive control, cosmetic surgery, women’s safety on the streets, trans rights, sex work and childcare”. Between testimonies from various guests, we were shown a lot of cooking and candle lighting around the house as the representatives of different generations marshalled their thoughts. 

But the spa-like mood was probably wise. Viewers’ fuses will have been lit by some of the incendiary issues debated. Cooling off was required. 

Wark, inevitably, assumed the role of house matron. Incisive and unshockable, she merrily wielded a vibrator like a microphone at one point, as she threw out questions that kept the show rolling. She confidently owned her opinions on fashion. “I’m a tag hag,” she said, “But I think we as a society accord too much importance to looks.”