Although Russell T Davies’s new mini-series NOLLY is about a quintessential British TV soap opera from the 1970s it is essential viewing for anyone who loves the melodramas that go on behind the scenes. Davies, responsible for such groundbreaking series as Queer as Folk and It’s a Sin. shows a genuine affection for both this soap opera and the prima donna who starred in it.
Crossroads Motel started in 1964 just 4 years after the legendary Coronation Street that is still running. However, unlike ‘Corrie’” and the highly successful “Eastenders’ that would follow later, Crossroads was not about the working class but was built around the character ‘Meg Richardson‘ who was decidedly middle-class. Despite the fact that the UK didn’t have motels (!) and the show became a byword for cheap production values, particularly in the 1970s and early 1980s, the series regularly attracted huge audiences during this time, with ratings as high as 15 million viewers.
Noele Gordon had some success as a stage actress in the 1950s’, and her claims to fame until then were that she had been the first woman ever seen on color TV, and also the first woman to interview a Uk Prime Minister. In I955 she helped launch a new TV network ATV Midlands which would go on to produce her starring vehicle Crossroads
This series of Nolly ….. the name that everyone called Miss Gordon …..starts in 1981 when she had already spent 17 years playing Meg Gordon the Motel Owner and the undisputed queen of the show. We see her …..played so pitch perfectly by Helena Bonham Carter with such a discreet edge of camp …. as she goes about preparing and filming the three weekly episodes. She is the vocal driver of the show who gets her own way on the set but still has a tender fondness for her fellow cast members, especially newcomers such as Polly.(Bethany Antonia)
This makes her both popular with the crew and cast, and her performances make her beloved by an enormous fan base made up of mainly working-class women. And more than a sprinkling of gay men. But the money men down in London don’t share this enthusiasm and called Nolly’s Agent in for a meeting. He presumed it was to renegotiate her contract but instead was told that Nolly was being fired.
This is when the off-screen soap opera behind the scenes become far more dramatic than that on the screen. The question on everyone’s lips ….. especially Nolly’s was ‘why?’ (No spoilers here ..) Suddenly we see Nolly flit from being defiant and calling a Press Conference and being splashed over every front page, and then we see her as a very vulnerable older actress wondering if she will ever find work again.
Davies and Bonham Carter conspire to ensure that we have already fallen in love with Nolly and that we are so in her corner every inch of the way. So too is the flamboyant comedian Larry Grayson (a brilliant turn by Mark Gattis) one of her best friends whose own career has already peaked. One of the things they console themselves with is neither have a ‘partner” to share with, and Davies goes out of his way to let us know that unwed Gordon did have male suitors at times in her life
What struck me was although Uk Soaps had similar ‘cardboard sets’ as US Soaps, the acting is much more natural and we do not see all those obvious stares into the distance, or the strange very fake manner of talking.
The world of soap operas that Crossroad belonged to has well gone (as did the actual Crossroads some 2 years after Nolly had been fired) but was so wonderful to nostalgically re-live them through our rose-colored glasses in this totally unmissable series
P.S. NOLLY can be streamed on ITVX (via a VPN) BUT PBS has plans to stream it in the US very soon
Review : Roger Walker-Dack
Editor in Chief : Queerguru
Member of G.A.L.E.C.A. (Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association) and NLGJA The Association of LGBT
Journalists. and The Online Film Critics Society. Ex Contributung Editor The Gay Uk & Contributor Edge Media
Former CEO and Menswear Designer of Roger Dack Ltd in the UK
one of the hardest-working journalists in the business' Michael Goff of Towleroad
