Her new HBO series, her first small screen role since the end of the groundbreaking Sex In The City 12 years ago, is called Divorce and begins with Parker's character wanting out of a marriage.

No, not this time to Mr Big but to a Mr Wrong, played by Thomas Haden Church, who is best known for characters on the border between slightly off and maybe just bad, as in Alexander Payne's barbed Oscar-winning dramedy Sideways.

The new show, created by Sharon Horgan, the Irish writer and star of the Anglo/American black comedy of uncomfortable relationships Catastrophe, finds Parker's character negotiating the likely end to a marriage and finding it isn't as easy as simply saying you want out.

"When did it start to go off the tracks, in your mind?' asks Church's character, Robert, to which Parker' replies: "Perhaps when you grew the moustache."

In an Instagram post that includes a trailer for the "long time coming" show, Parker says it's "a great thrill" that HBO are allowing her to preview the show due in the American autumn but gives no further details of its debut, or broadcast in Australia.