Trailer for Russell T Davies drama Nolly stars Helena Bonham Carter
As if Russell T Davies hasn’t been busy enough putting together three 60th anniversary specials for Doctor Who and writing season 14 for Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson to go travelling in the TARDIS, he’s also had the time to create a new drama for ITVX starring Helena Bonham Carter.
Nolly is a three-part series that will tell the story of Noele Gordon – the star of British soap opera Crossroads where she played flame-haired widow Meg Richardson. One of the biggest stars in British TV at the time, in 1981, Gordon found herself axed from the show she’d starred in for 18 years without an explanation .
ITV describe how: “Nolly brings the true Noele Gordon once more into the spotlight. The Queen of the Midlands, a star who could be tough, haughty and imperious, grandly sweeping into rehearsals from her Rolls Royce, but also a hard-working actress who was fiercely loyal and loved by cast and crew alike. And at last, the biggest question of all can be answered – why was she sacked? Nolly reveals the truth, the consequences, and the legacy of that terrible day.”
Adding that Nolly is “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. And it is a love letter to a legend of television, and to the madcap soap she starred in, Nolly is an outrageously fun and wildly entertaining ride through Noele Gordon’s most tumultuous years, and a sharp, affectionate and heartbreaking portrait of a forgotten icon.”
The show which also stars Augustus Prew, Mark Gatiss and Con O’Neill is expected to arrive on ITV’s new streaming service ITVX in February 2023.
Nolly takes the collaborations between Russell T Davies and producer Nicola Shindler into double figures. The partnership has produced a number of very popular and critically acclaimed TV hits including It’s A Sin, Years and Years, Queer As Folk, Casanova, Cucumber, Banana, Bob & Rose and The Second Coming.
Russell T Davies, who has also returned to being showrunner of Doctor Who, has penned three hour-long episodes of the show for November 2023 and we’ll be expecting to see the first episode of season 14 of the BBC science fiction hit around Christmas 2023. These shows will be the first that has seen a new deal between the BBC and Disney.
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