What’s Fact or Fiction in Nolly Episode 1?
The miniseries Nolly on MASTERPIECE is based on a true story, though some characters and scenes have been invented. So, did 10,000 committed fans really turn out for a Crossroads wedding scene? Was the cast of this early soap opera a diverse one? And is it possible that Noele Gordon truly was the first woman to appear on color television? Discover which details and events in Nolly Episode 1 are fact and which are fiction. [Contains spoilers.]
- 1.
Noele Gordon was First Woman to Appear on Color TV
FACT! She is the very first to appear in motion on color television, a transmission that occurred in 1938. Ten years earlier, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird had transmitted the still color image of a basket of strawberries, according to the UK’s Science and Media Museum. And in 1926, the Daily Mail reports that Baird transmitted the first black and white still image of his assistant, William Taynton.
Nolly Gordon was perhaps a more lively subject for Baird’s 1938 experiments, “chosen for her blue eyes, fair skin, and very dark hair, which she would later dye red,” according to the Independent (UK).
- 2.
Ten Thousand Fans Came to the Crossroads Wedding
Fans watch Crossroads stars, Noele Gordon (as Meg Richardson) and John Bentley (as Hugh Mortimer) leave Birmingham Cathedral during filming in 1975. FACT! Throngs this size turned out to watch Noele Gordon as the character Meg Richardson become Mrs. Meg Mortimer at Birmingham Cathedral in 1975. Unlike the out-of-the-blue shock this is for the Crossroads crew in the miniseries, “ATV actively promoted the February recording date of ‘the TV wedding of the decade’,” inviting viewers to attend,” says The Noele Gordon Archive. “It was a huge deliberate publicity stunt to show just how popular with the public [the show] was.”
- 3.
Honour was a Character in Crossroads
FICTION! Nolly creator Russell T Davies tells iNews (UK) that he invented the character of Poppy Ngomo, the young actress playing Honour, a surprise new member of Meg Richardson’s family. “There wasn’t an actress called Poppy,” says Davies. “I just had to invent someone to come in as a newcomer.” That said, Poppy is “based on actor Cleo Sylvestre, who played Melanie Harper, Meg’s adopted daughter in Crossroads,” according to The Royal Television Society.
Sylvestre joined the soap in 1970 and her appearance came “at a time when racial tension was quite high, especially in places such as Birmingham where the show was based,” notes The Guardian (UK). “The decision to introduce a main character who was Black was unprecedented and a brave decision for a soap that was sometimes ridiculed.”
- 4.
Nolly First Announced Her Exit by Convening a Press Conference
FICTION! In truth, Noele Gordon initially revealed her stunning news in an exclusive interview with a tabloid the day before reporters swamped ATV for comment. “At the rehearsal rooms in Bradford Street, the new director arrived to find the press huddled outside the building. No one had told the poor man that his star had been sacked or that the story would appear in the Daily Mirror,” writes TV historian Dorothy Hobson in The Telegraph (UK). You can find video of Gordon speaking to reporters that day. Ever the professional, her remarks were measured and calm—not testy and blunt as portrayed in the miniseries.
- 5.
Nolly Lived with Her Mum
Noele Gordon and her mother, Joan. FACT! Noele Gordon never married, and she and her mother Joan were known to be exceptionally close. As adults, they first lived together in a white-washed Georgian manor house in Ross-on-Wye, then in adjoining flats in Birmingham, where Crossroads was filmed. Joan “helped Noele to learn her lines,” according to Birmingham Live and even had a cameo walk-on in her daughter’s show. Her mother was called “Jockey,” perhaps because of her spirit and diminutive size, Nolly noted her memoir, My Life at Crossroads. Joan “Jockey” Gordon died in 1979 and Nolly’s grief was likely made worse by her own firing from Crossroads just 22 months later.
