Mark Gatiss, Con O’Neill and Richard Lintern are among those who’ll join Helena Bonham Carter in Russell T Davies’ new ITV drama Nolly.
The three-part series will explore the rise and fall of actress Noele ‘Nolly’ Gordon, who was unceremoniously sacked from ITV soap Crossroads in 1981.
Gatiss will play entertainer Larry Grayson, who shared a close friendship with Gordon, while O’Neill has been cast as Crossroads producer Jack Barton.
Lintern (Silent Witness) will play Ronnie Allen, the actor who portrayed Crossroads’ suave hotel manager David Hunter. Other members of the Crossroads cast will be played by Augustus Prew (portraying Nolly’s friend and co-star Tony Adams), Antonia Bernath (playing Jane Rossington), Clare Foster (playing Sue Lloyd), Chloe Harris (playing Susan Hanson) and Lloyd Griffith (playing Paul Henry).
Rounding out the cast will be Tim Wallers as ATV’s Controller of Programming, Charles Denton, and Bethany Antonia as Poppy Ngomo, a young actor thrown into the world of Crossroads.
ITV and Quay Street Productions have also released a first-look image of Bonham Carter in character as filming on the series gets underway.
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Nolly will reunite writer Russell T Davies with executive producer Nicola Shindler, following the pair’s collaborations on acclaimed projects such as It’s A Sin, Queer As Folk, and The Second Coming, and is the first production to come from Shindler’s Quay Street Productions.
Speaking to RadioTimes.com about the series earlier this year, Davies described Nolly as being “about the mechanics of TV and the whims of TV and the cruelty of it, but in the end the love of it.”
“It’s very much a story of how women are treated by the industry, but it’s not a Me Too story, that’s what I liked about it,” he said. “We’re fortunate in this day and age that Me Too stories are coming out and are being said, but I think they only scratch the surface. The problems that women have with men are not only sexual problems – men have power and authority and tempers and whims on a level that goes far beyond the sexual.”
Directed by It’s A Sin’s James Hoar, Nolly will first be made available on ITV’s new streaming service ITVX in 2023, with a linear transmission to follow months later.
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