Helena Bonham Carter embodies Crossroads’ Noele Gordon in trailer for new drama

By Naomi Clarke, PA Entertainment Reporter

Helena Bonham Carter embodies Crossroads star Noele Gordon in a first-look trailer for Russell T Davies’s upcoming drama about the rise and fall of the actress.

Gordon, known to her friends as Nolly, played widow Meg Richardson in the long-running soap between 1964 and 1981 until she was sacked unexpectedly.

The teaser clip for the forthcoming three-part ITVX series, titled Nolly, sees Bonham Carter don Gordon’s signature red locks as she prepares to tell the press the news.

Wearing a blue dress, oversized sunglasses and smoking a cigarette, the actress is first advised: “Remember, you’ve resigned this is fine. This was always your plan.

“You’ve handed in your resignation because you wanted to. The decision to resign is yours and yours alone.”

As she appears before the reporters, she bluntly states: “Gentlemen, I have been sacked.”

Gordon was recognised as one of the most famous faces in Britain at the time of her sacking and dubbed the “queen of the Midlands” by some as the soap opera was set in a motel in the area.

 

She was also a presenter, who became the first woman to interview a British Prime Minister when she spoke to Harold Macmillan when he was in office.

ITV describes the upcoming drama surrounding the actress as “a bold exploration of how the establishment turns on women who refuse to play by the rules, the women it cannot understand and the women it fears”.

The episodes will show how Gordon was both “tough, haughty and imperious” but also hard-working and “fiercely loyal” – and why she was sacked one day.

Davies, whose credits include Doctor Who and It’s a Sin, has written the script and produced the series while Peter Hoar is on directing duties.

Last month, Bonham Carter told the PA news agency: “(Russell’s) very good at championing the people who I think have been cast aside.”

Reflecting on the show, she added: “(The series is about the) fall of the queen, she was the most famous woman in Britain, next to the Queen, she was called the queen of the Midlands, and in everybody’s living room, she was then vanished.

“It’s the story of her fall, it is very, very funny, having said that.

“She had many, many strands to her, in her time, where quite frankly there weren’t that many women, in front of the camera… a woman ahead of her time.”

In 1985, new Crossroads producer Phillip Bowman was reportedly planning to bring back the character of Meg Richardson.

However, Gordon died in April that year at the age of 65 with stomach cancer.

Nolly will launch on ITVX in February next year.