Soap operas are microcosms of life. Streets and squares, farms and motels; all the triumph and despair of human existence compressed into a few houses, a few lives. It’s no surprise then, that Russell T Davies – on a hot streak afterA Very British Scandal and It’s a Sin – has turned his attention to the Golden Age of the British soap opera. His three-part drama, Nolly, streaming now on ITVX, has a similarly telescopic scale: a portrait of a woman, and a portrait of a nation.
Nolly is the story of Noele Gordon (Helena Bonham Carter), the star and matriarch of Crossroads – the Midlands-based soap opera that ran from the 1960s through to the end of the Eighties. Nolly, as everyone calls her, is a legend: loved by co-stars, adored by the public, tolerated by directors. But a new era is approaching, and executives at ATV (one of the broadcasters who would eventually be consolidated into ITV) decide to axe her. “All good things must come to an end,” announces Charles Denton (Tim Wallers), the controller of programming, almost licking his lips at the thought of putting the low-rent spectacle out of its misery.
