Nolly: PBS Sets Premiere Date for Bio Miniseries Starring Helena Bonham Carter

(Photo: ITV)

Nolly is coming to PBS in 2024. The public television network has announced a premiere date for the three-episode miniseries. The biographical series aired on ITV in the UK earlier this year.

Starring Helena Bonham Carter,  Con O’Neill, Max Brown, Bethany Antonia, Philip Gascoyne, and Mark Gatiss, the series looks back at the success of actress Noele “Nolly” Gordon and her controversial firing from the British soap Crossroads in the early 1980s.

Russell T. Davis, the creator and writer of the series, said the following about bringing Gordon’s story to the small screen:

“I think the more I work in television and the more I work with actors, the more mysterious that treatment seems. We’ve all seen actors being chucked out of soaps and we’ve all seen people falling from grace, but the very public and ruthless nature of that seemed odder and odder as time went on.

I’m also fascinated by the fact that this was a Golden Age of soap opera and in many ways, stories like the sacking of Noele Gordon and the writing out of Meg Mortimer became the template for the great soap stories of the next 20 years, when soaps absolutely ruled the television networks, and life revolved around them to a degree that’s hard to understand these days.

It’s also set in 1981, when everything started to change. Business is starting to take over in the entertainment world and rules the roost throughout the 80s. And people suffer as a result. It’s also the story of a woman in a very masculine industry. Obviously now we’re fascinated by a lot of ‘MeToo’ stories, and while there’s no sexual element to this story, it shows how men treat women in and out of business.

I did uncover the chain of events that led to her sacking, that no one else had ever quite seen. There’s no shocks – I think it’s important to say that there’s no big revelations. We’re not exposing anything about Nolly’s private life. But what I did uncover was the chain of conversations that led to what happened and it’s quite devastating, I think.”

Bonham Carter also spoke about playing Gordon. She said the following:

“I love any character that has got many colours to play. I think Russell’s script was a gift frankly…and a gift of a part. It was so clearly written; unlike a lot of screenwriters, he writes idiomatically for character. She fizzed off the page.

The first thing I did was watch her appearance on The Russell Harty Show on YouTube. She comes on and sings ‘Some People’ with such defiance, given that that was the night her last episode aired. The interview has a wow factor. She’s just so un-flinchingly honest. Unflinchingly direct and unembarrassed, incredibly courageous and unafraid. She tells it how it is, and she doesn’t let them get away with the treatment of her.

I found her ferocity, her sheer spirit, really inspiring and hilarious too. She’s a powerful woman. For a woman that was forced to retire there was nothing remotely retiring about her as a personality. If you gave the same attributes to a man: forceful, opinionated, bossy, knew what they wanted, told everyone what to do…Would it have been the same sort of problem? I don’t think so. In a woman, that really narked people off. She was indomitable and unapologetic. I think many of the men who ran the show were terrified of her and threatened by her!”

Nolly will arrive on PBS on March 17, 2024.  The trailer is below.

What do you think? Are you familiar with Gordon’s work? Do you plan to check out this series on PBS when it debuts next year?