Nolly: ITV release date, plot, episodes and cast

A new ITV drama that was filmed in Liverpool is coming to our screens next week.

Nolly tells the story of the reign and fall of TV legend and so called "Queen of the Midlands" Noele Gordon, played by actress Helena Bonham Carter. Noele starred as Meg Richardson in the long-running soap opera Crossroads, until she was axed without warning or explanation at the height of the show's success in 1981.

The three-part drama brings Noele Gordon, who died in 1985, back into the spotlight and explores the events that followed her being axed from the soap. Nolly is said to explore "how the establishment turns on women who refuse to play by the rules, the women it cannot understand and the women it fears."

According to ITV, Nolly is also "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 heart-breaking portrait of a forgotten icon."

Harry Potter and The Crown actress Helena Bonham Carter will star alongside Auguste Prew as Tony Adams in the upcoming drama.

Written by BAFTA-winning writer Russell T Davies, the series is set in Birmingham in the 1970s but scenes were filmed in the Liverpool City Region, including on Exchange Flags. Scenes were also filmed in other parts of the North West including in Salford and Bolton.

Helena Bonham Carter said of her role: “Noele Gordon was a fascinating, complex, brilliant and gutsy woman – none of which I knew before I read Russell T Davies’ script. I’m so thrilled to help tell Nolly’s long overdue and largely forgotten story. Russell’s screenplay is a work of brilliance and I hope I’ll do him and Nolly justice. I can’t wait to start.”

Nolly cast

Helena Bonham Carter as Noele Gordon

Max Brown as Michael Summerton

Antonia Bernath as Jane Rossington

Bethany Antonia as Poppy Ngomo

Mark Gatiss as Larry Grayson

Emily Butcher as Fiona Fullerton

Augustus Prew as Tony Adams

Richard Lintern as Ronnie Allen

Chloe Harris as Susan Hanson

Clare Foster as Sue Lloyd

Lloyd Griffith as Paul Henry