The truth that inspired the fiction – learn more about the real event behind three-part ITV drama Nolly.
If you didn’t catch three-part drama Nolly when it first arrived on ITVX earlier this year, you will now have another chance, as the episodes are set to start airing from 9pm on Wednesday 27th December on ITV1.
The drama, which is based on the true story of soap star Noele ‘Nolly’ Gordon, comes from screenwriter and Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies, and stars screen icon Helena Bonham Carter in the title role.
Nolly’s unceremonious ousting from Crossroad, the soap opera which made her a household name, dominated newspaper front pages for weeks, but she has become something of an obscure figure today, with most young people never having heard of her.
The ITV drama, which was meticulously researched via extended Zoom calls with Nolly’s friends and former co-stars during the COVID lockdown, is Davies’s attempt to rectify that, as he pays tribute to a hero of his own youth, charting her rise, fall, and rise again.
Nolly began her career on the stage after graduating from prestigious acting school RADA, appearing in a variety of productions including several hosted at the London Palladium under impresario Val Parnell.
Though he was almost three decades her senior, romance soon blossomed between Nolly and the married Parnell, who embarked on an affair that lasted 20 years. She would confirm the long-circulating rumours of their relationship in a News of the World column in 1981, proclaiming that she was head over heels for the prolific theatre executive.
Though Nolly had hoped that Parnell would one day leave his wife for her, he refused, citing his Roman Catholic faith as the key reason. That made the eventual end to their affair all the more heartbreaking, when he decided he would indeed divorce in order to remarry an even younger woman. The impact of this loss reverberates through critical moments in ITVX’s Nolly.
Parnell broke the news while she was living in New York City in the 1960s, learning lessons from commercial American TV that she could then take home. She had left the bright lights of the stage behind in the 1950s to pursue a career in the emerging small screen industry, having previously become the first woman transmitted on colour television during a test by inventor John Logie Baird.
Among her early wins was a show called Tea with Noele Gordon, on which she became the first woman to interview a sitting Prime Minister (Harold Macmillan). The success of the show led to her stepping back from behind-the-scenes duties in favour of being a full-time on-camera personality, fronting a series called Lunchbox, which is widely regarded as one of the first daytime magazine shows – the likes of which continue to thrive to this day.
But Nolly is most often remembered for soap opera Crossroads, where she played motel owner Meg Mortimer, a role to which she completely devoted the better part of two decades. When we meet her in ITVX’s Nolly, she is firmly established in the role and a cherished figure to viewers across the country – 15 million of whom tune in every night.
In a mesmerising opening scene, we see the complete control that Nolly had over virtually every aspect of the production, making on-the-fly script changes, improvising telephone conversations if episodes ran short and offering support to any new additions to the cast. In episode 1, we see the latter play out between Bonham Carter’s Nolly and fictional actor Poppy Ngomo (Bethany Antonia), with the dynamic between them inspired by real anecdotes heard by Davies in the research stage.
Nolly lived and breathed Crossroads both on set and off, with that dedication winning her an adoring fanbase. More than 10,000 people turned up outside Birmingham Cathedral to watch her character get married, with the crowd being so enormous that it was impossible to keep entirely out of frame. How a humble motel owner drew so many guests to her special day remains a mystery.
Hence the outrage when Nolly told press in 1981 that she had been abruptly sacked from Crossroads, with campaigns to keep her on the show promptly launched by fans. The stamina behind their fight is reflected in modern social media drives to save the likes of Sanditon and Lucifer, while the desperate scramble for details on how Meg would be written out is now reserved for superhero blockbusters – but this was an era of three television channels, after all.
In this case, the battle was lost and Nolly was given her marching orders. There was a small victory, however, in that Meg’s expected death in a motel fire was avoided for a happier ending, in which she sailed away on the QE2 to start an exciting new life abroad. Of course, things were less rosy for Nolly herself, who was devastated to have been ousted from a job she loved so dearly.
In later years, fans would learn that producers ATV fired Nolly in order to drive down the popularity of Crossroads, thus giving them an excuse to cancel it and focus on other projects.
In an inspiring show of resilience, Nolly went back to her roots in the theatre, starring in a production of Stephen Sondheim musical Gypsy and later Call Me Madam, which did a short stint on the West End. A bright third act seemed to be calling, but this was tragically stopped in its tracks when Nolly was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Though she fought the illness with the same steel she had every other challenge in her life, she passed away in 1985.
With ITVX’s Nolly, Davies is compensating for an injustice that has long been overlooked. Though he acknowledges the unfairness of an accomplished woman being torn down at the height of her career, he does so in his usual razor-sharp writing style, which juggles poignancy with comedy and warmth, in a similar fashion to his previous work. For many, this will be their first meeting with Nolly – and it won’t be easily forgotten.
Nolly is available to stream free on ITVX now and will air at 9pm on Wednesday 27th December on ITV1. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on.
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