The Unforgettable Noele Gordon - TV review

As a work pal said when I mentioned I was watching The Unforgettable Noele Gordon: "Noel who? I've never heard of him."

So for those of us who'd forgotten the "unforgettable" lady in question, this was a cheap and cheerful reminder, in the form of a tribute to the late queen of Crossroads – the teatime Brummie soap which in the 1960s and 70s got 18 million viewers a night into a lather.

And it quickly brought back many childhood memories: the wobbly walls, the paintings that fell to the floor when a door slammed; and how as a kid I had a thing for "Miss Diane" but was too young to put my finger on it. So to speak.

Crossroads was am-dram for the new cathode-ray masses; pantomime for a nation coming home to tea. Compared to Coronation Street it seemed to be thrown together by the props department at the Darby and Joan.

And it made Neighbours, its later Aussie copycat, look like a slick, million-dollar production by Steven Spielberg.

Last night's "Unforgettable" was a reminder of how few programmes have endured as much ridicule as Crossroads, for its far-fetched storylines and its acting which was more wooden than its low-budget sets; yet despite this, it told how few programmes have won the hearts of so many viewers.

And this, in no small way, it has to be said, was largely down to Noele's matriarchal but loveable Meg Mortimer character.

We were offered some Noele trivia. Did you know she got her acting skills from RADA? And there's me thinking she'd been to IKEA.

Then again, some of the acting could be forgiven as Crossroads' output, due to its popularity, was astonishing. Billed five nights a week, it had to be recorded "as live" with few opportunities for a re-take.

In fact we discovered that when filming was looking to finish under time, a "live" phone call would hastily be made to Meg, and she'd happily rabbit on to a pretend taxi driver about how far the motel was from the NEC until it was time for the Tony Hatch theme tune.

But, under the drive of its leading lady, the potential for pratfalls was its charm. It also became the point of watching Crossroads: to see if the suave David Hunter would get his kipper tie trapped in a pretend door to nowhere.

"The Unforgettable" was also a reminder that here was the first soap which created its own hat: the Benny hat, worn by the village idiot to keep his brain warm.

Last night's tribute made me think that in a way Crossroads WAS the Midlands on the telly: loveable, unself-conscious, quick to laugh at itself and facing any number of crises with Dunkirk gung-ho and a Brummie accent.

Of course, the Midlands' own Fawlty Towers was of particular interest because of its local connections: filmed in Birmingham and starring many Midlands' people, and also many familiar locations: some scenes were shot in Wolverhampton and the original village used as King's Oak was Baschurch in Shropshire, while the famous motel was not in Birmingham at all but was an agricultural college next to some cows.

The Unforgettable Noele Gordon might, unlike Crossroads and Noele herself, have been instantly forgettable. But I reckon spirited old "Nolly" would have appreciated that this tribute to her was sponsored by a firm that makes cheap and cheerful furniture.

For someone who spent so much of her life trying to avoid tripping over tacky motel tables and chairs, it seemed a fitting touch.

Ben Bentley