I have just finished watching Nolly, the new three-part ITV drama about Noele Gordon's sacking from the longrunning soap opera Crossroads, and was pleasantly surprised: the series seems very well judged, executed with a lightness of touch yet never dismissive of its subject, unlike - or so it seemed to me - the recent ITV drama about absconding politician John Stonehouse.
Nolly acknowledges the limitations of the longrunning soap in which Noele Gordon spent the greater part of her career but also makes abundantly clear what it meant to its viewers: small wonder that Dorothy Hobson, writer of an excellent book about Crossroads, appeared to give it her approval in a piece in the Daily Telegraph today.
The story of the actress's being axed from the show in which she had starred is so well known - in outline, anyway - that no spoiler alerts are necessary for anyone likely to be taking the time to read this post. I have seen recently on social media some concern about whether the person now believed to have been the true culprit behind the sacking - producer Jack Barton, rather than the higher-up Charles Denton, who took the flak at the time - would be fingered ... and he was.
There was even what is technically termed "the necessary scene", a final confrontation between hero (or heroine, in this case) and villain. Having discovered the truth of the matter in somewhat unlikely circumstances, Gordon lays the allegations out before the producer in a meeting and he eventually admits that yes, he had passed on his complaints of her on-set behaviour to Denton, ultimately labelling her (if I remember rightly) as "a difficult asset", so even if he hadn't pulled the trigger, his prints were all over the gun.
This scene comes very near the end of the action in the third and final episode, but Nolly is no hagiography: at the very start of the series we had been shown how very difficult she could indeed be, questioning lines, querying the actors' positions and generally undermining director and crew: not for nothing was she known as "The Queen of Crossroads", and her long association with ATV gave her a power and boldness beyond the rest of the cast.
And in that confrontation between actress and producer, after Barton's initial discomfort and denials he is emboldened to point what a nightmare she was - before asking her to make a return appearance on Crossroads, the shooting of which becomes this drama's final scene, and very movingly done.
Exasperating she could be, then, but also endearing: loved and supported by fellow Crossroads actor Tony Adams (Adam Chance), who even runs out of a rehearsal in Birmingham to jump into his yacht and sail to Southampton to see Gordon off on the QE2 after she has filmed the scenes of Meg's farewell to Jill, and - in Davies's telling of the story, anyway - it's Adams' arrival on said yacht which encourages Gordon to give a memorable two-armed Nixonesque wave goodbye.
The flamboyant farewell may be real enough, as shown by the above newspaper photo of Noele Gordon herself awave, but otherwise did things really happen that way? I don't know, but the close bond with Adams is certainly borne out by the real-life actor's appearance on at least one documentary about Noele Gordon ("The Unforgettable ...") and both Tony Adams and Susan Hanson (Diane) make a brief appearance as themselves at the end, applauding the memory of their colleague - and, by implication, giving their blessing to this telling of the story.
The confrontation with Barton was certainly an invention, as Davies admitted at the show's launch, as there was no evidence she ever found out that he was the one who was really responsible for her leaving the show. But it is very satisfying dramatically, and you believe in the sincerity of his applause when the shooting of her last ever scene in the show - on location in Venice - is completed: the tale has been rounded off perfectly.
Too good to be true? Well, Morecambe and Wise biographer Graham McCann once wrote of Peter Bowker's drama Eric and Ernie, an evocation of their early career, that if "taken as a fondly nostalgic 'once upon a time' tribute it works rather well ... Simplified and romanticised, the story slips down smoothly like a festive sweet sherry." I suppose Nolly is somewhere on the spectrum but I would say it's more ambitious than that. There are some genuinely touching moments, as when Nolly (the person) confides her feelings of vulnerability to her longtime pal Larry Grayson, and when - as in Dorothy Hobson's book - we get to hear the voices of the viewers of the soap.
This occurs during a scene on a bus in which Davies borrows some of the real-life actress's bafflement when interviewed by Russell Harty about her sacking ("I don't know ... I'm quiet-living" etc). This is in response to the inevitable "Why?" from the predominantly female group of fellow passengers, who tell her how much the programme means to them, and the sole dissenting voice (a middle-aged male) is very satisfyingly put in his place by Gordon herself. Maybe such a journey never took place but the feelings expressed by her fellow travellers reflect those of the viewers quoted by Hobson.
And for anyone with an intimate knowledge of the story who might question the lines given to Noele Gordon when first meeting the press after her sacking it seems the jammy Mr Davies has a free pass. In a clip of that meeting with the press which can be found on various documentaries her words are rather more restrained but the writer was told that the orignal footage was heavily edited before broadcast on the evening news and that in reality she had been much more intemperate, thus allowing him to invent whatever seemed right for his drama.
I recall in one interview of the time Noele Gordon made a show of waving away her years on Crossroads as "a lovely velvet rut", the implication being it had been time to go. She returned to the theatre, appearing in Gypsy (which we see in rehearsals) and, later, Call Me Madam. I didn't realise, or had forgotten until reminded by Davies's drama, that she had also been in The Boy Friend, touring dinner theatres in the Middle East before she eventually had to leave the show in Plymouth because of the illness which later claimed her life.
It seems a fitting production to go out on as The Boy Friend, like Crossroads, is at once beguiling and ridiculous. And, like the soap, it's not a send-up, which is where Ken Russell's film version of the musical went so spectacularly wrong: Sandy Wilson has real affection for the songs and the era he is recreating; there is no contempt about it. And I recall Jack Barton (the real one) saying something to the effect that the team behind Crossroads the team strove their utmost to bring "happiness and entertainment" to the audience.
So I salute Nolly (the series) as an affectionate evocation of Nolly (the actress/phenomenon) which makes clear how important Crossroads was to so many people and - who knows? - maybe it'll even put a temporary halt to those customary criticisms of the soap's production values, though that may be asking much too much.
And from a structural point of view the unfurling of the story, the releasing of information, in Nolly seems masterly. There are, for example, some oblique references to her relationship with Val Parnell early on, but she only tells the full story when obliged to assert herself with her colleagues during rehearsals for Gypsy: "exposition as ammunition", as my former writing tutor Tim Fountain used to say.
Is the woman-succeeding-in-man's-world bit laboured too much, a 21st century emphasis added to an old tale? I don't know; but as it serves to soften that initial impression of Gordon hijacking Crossroads rehearsals in the first episode it makes sense. And overall, as I stated at the beginning, the tone feels right: a story told with affection but not blind to its heroine's faults.
Yesterday I picked up my copy of the recent DVD box set containing, on a whopping ninety-odd discs, all the extant episodes of Crossroads featuring Noele Gordon. Already possessing a copy of the 45th Annniversary box set you could say that my recent purchase was unnecessary: essentially I'm shelling out for the two years of episodes not already included in the earlier set.
But I couldn't not do it.
I have written in an earlier post of the experience of watching Crossroads with my mother and of how, in the late sixties, the programme suddenly moved from being background noise on my return from school and became a shared adventure which we avidly followed together from day to day.
There was, however, a period of about two years when I was around to watch with her but chose to opt out, something I now regret. With what may seem an unlikely neatness, that more or less coincides with those final two years of the new box set. It will be odd watching them alone, without the intermittent running commentary which was an integral part of the experience for us, and - as Hobson's book records - many other viewers of the soap.
I won't repeat here what I've said earlier about Crossroads - a link is provided below if you wish to read it - but my deep affection for the show, intimately bound up with those memories of my mother, makes me especially grateful to Russell T. Davies for telling this tale so well. True, some of those playing the Crossroads cast are, it has to be said, more looky-likey than others, and the drama's star, Helena Bonham-Carter, doesn't particularly resemble Noele Gordon in appearance or build, but it's a measure of both the acting and the writing that such considerations quickly fade into the background.
So if you have loved Crossroads, see it if you can. You won't be disappointed. You will have to sign in to itvx, as it's now called, and endure adverts, just as in those pre-VHS days. (Suddenly I hear the echo of a regular maternal complaint: "That was a short end of part one.")
There is one detail about Noele Gordon not mentioned in Dorothy Hobson's book: a card from the actress which came after publication, as recounted in today's Telegraph article. It seems a fitting note on which to close:
When my book, Crossroads: The Drama of a Soap Opera, was published the following summer, I sent a copy to Noele and within a week received a card. Her words were kind. "I know you have been very fair, and appreciative of all the efforts we put into Crossroads over the years … I think you have made a lot of people think twice about their opinions of the art of soap opera. I hope you can come to the Rep at Xmas to see Call Me Madam. Love and thanks, Noele." I treasured the card and the fact that, despite the way that she had been treated, she still wanted Crossroads to be recognised and valued.
Links:
The aforementioned post about my personal memories of the show can be found here.
There is also a piece about Emmerdale, here.
Matthew Sweet and others, including Nolly's writer Russell T. Davies, discuss Crossroads, Nolly and soaps in general in an illuminating programme on Radio 3, available on BBC Sounds here. It is also available as a podcast.
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