Helena as Crossroads Noele Shes fabulous darling CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews

Helena as Crossroads Noele? She’s fabulous darling! CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews new ITV drama Nolly

Nolly (ITVX)

Valuation: *****

gossip! It is the lifeblood of television and theatre. Without gossip and whispers, breaches of trust and stories of indiscretion, there would be no show.

According to veteran thesp Roger Allam, the collective term for the profession is “actor gossip”. Well, I heard him say that, but keep it to yourself.

Nolly (ITVX), a three-part drama about star Noele Gordon’s 1981 dismissal from Crossroads, revels, delights and revels in the thrills, mysteries and false rumors that grip the cast of every hit series.

Playing the domineering soap queen who ruled teatime television for 17 years, Helena Bonham Carter is fabulous. There’s no other word for it, darling.

In a mink coat that smells of gin and cigars and an auburn hairdo that could scrub pans, she plays the glamorous and extraordinary actress, singer, television executive, pilot, sports presenter, political interviewer and West End star.

Empire: Helena Bonham Carter as Noele Gordon in ITV's Nolly

Empire: Helena Bonham Carter as Noele Gordon in ITV’s Nolly

Almost all of Noele’s pioneering achievements have been forgotten today, almost four decades after her death. But Nolly, written by Russell T. Davies, aims to bring her back to the fore — and castigate the chauvinistic male TV establishment that ousted her for the crime of being feminine and powerful.

Noele has been difficult, and the drama (which won’t air on ITV until the autumn, although it’s available to binge-watch on the ITVX streaming video service) is making no bones about it.

In a savage opening scene, the actress attacks a producer who slams the hundreds of Crossroads fans who have gathered to marvel at a wedding scene filmed in Birmingham Cathedral.

Nolly, as her friends called her, chews the man up and spits out his bones. He’s humiliated in front of the whole cast and crew.

“The problem is you,” she tells him. “When 10,000 people come to show their love, I think that’s a wonderful thing. What kind of person would she cut out of the picture?’

So close: Helena as Noele and Mark Gattis as Larry Grayson

So close: Helena as Noele and Mark Gattis as Larry Grayson

Reality: Noele and comedian and Generation Game host Larry Grayson in real life

Reality: Noele and comedian and Generation Game host Larry Grayson in real life

This is a woman who never compromises. No wonder Crossroads was one of the most popular British programs ever produced, second only in viewership to Coronation Street – which had a far larger budget.

Nonetheless, critics scoffed at the bloated dialogue and shaky set, made worse by budget constraints. In 1968, the bosses of independent Midlands broadcaster ATV were so embarrassed about their biggest show that they tried to cancel it. The public backlash was spearheaded from Downing Street: PM’s wife, Mary Wilson, was a devotee.

Crossroads survived, but when the knives for Nolly came out 13 years later, no amount of fan protest could save them. Bonham Carter shows us the weak point behind Noele’s tough facade.

There are big, extravagant scenes, like a stirring call to arms on a bus surrounded by brummie housewives, but there are also plenty of intimate glimpses of despair and loneliness.

Nolly never married, although her closest friend and Crossroads co-star, Tony Adams (Augustus Prew), lived across the street and acted as both her chauffeur and confidant… and chief gossip.

Mark Gatiss plays another admiring friend, comedian and Generation Game host Larry Grayson.

Unlike Bonham Carter, he fails to capture the breezy glamor that audiences loved – his version of Grayson is seedy and cynical, which Larry never was.

But the script gives Gatiss a chance to revive some of his double entendres that seem more outrageous now than in more innocent times: “My friend Everard came to. I got him a cup of beef tea. I said, “You need some meat in you.” Try to get away with it now at 5:45 PM prime time on Saturday.

The joy Russell T. Davies feels at remembering the glory days of television is irrepressible. Nolly makes you want a Crossroads boxset – although it wouldn’t be the same on a high-definition widescreen.

The TVs were tiny when we were all tied to Crossroads – but the characters were immense.