The truth that inspired the fiction \u2013 learn more about the real event behind three-part ITV drama Nolly. <\/p>
If you didn\u2019t catch three-part drama Nolly<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n The drama, which is based on the true story of soap star Noele \u2018Nolly\u2019 Gordon, comes from screenwriter and Doctor Who<\/a> showrunner Russell T Davies<\/a>, and stars screen icon Helena Bonham Carter<\/a> in the title role.<\/p>\n Nolly\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n The ITV drama, which was meticulously researched via extended Zoom calls with Nolly\u2019s friends and former co-stars during the COVID lockdown, is Davies\u2019s attempt to rectify that, as he pays tribute to a hero of his own youth, charting her rise, fall, and rise again.<\/p> 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s Nolly.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>