Make a date at the Crossroads

CHAMPAGNE sparkling translucently. Cigar smoke mingling with a merry babble of conversation. Ripples of laughter.

Three key characters from Crossroads were relaxing over lunch—Noele Gordon, elegant and sophisticated; polished Brian Kent, and enchanting Jane Rossington.

The meal was over and I talked to them about Crossroads, a vital, ambitious series that looks like becoming as much a part of British television life as Coronation Street.

Crossroads … a highly organised routine by a 100-strong production team and a seven-day week for actors to transmit a daily serial.

Crossroads … set around the lives of two sisters, Meg Richardson, who runs a motel, and Kitty Jarvis, proprietress of a general store. And also the human, compelling stories of travellers who stop at Crossroads Motel, deep in the Midlands, where invariably their lives entangled with those of the main regular characters.

Noele Gordon, who plays Meg Richardson, widowed owner of the motel. After eight years and more than 2,000 shows for ITV, you’d think Noele would be blasé about any new series.

But she told me: “Life is dreadfully hectic again now, but I love it. I try to make Meg Richardson forthright and honest. But with a sense of humour. I try to imagine how I would feel if I were a visitor to the Crossroads motel. I know how I would like to be treated.”

In the series, Meg has been widowed for three years. Naturally, she leans on her lively daughter, Jill, who nurses ideas about heading for London to work on a magazine.

The rich aroma of black coffee wafted across the restaurant as 21-year-old Jane Rossington, the Sutton Coldfield girl who plays Jill, motel receptionist and secretary, told me: “You might say I am accustomed to working in a serial. I had a spell in Emergency—Ward 10.

“But it’s very different working in a five days a week programme. Hard work. Very hard. But it’s lovely to be working so near home.”

Beryl Johnstone, who plays Kitty Jarvis, Meg’s sister and proprietress of a local general store, joined us, requesting a light for a small cigar — she has given up smoking cigarettes.

“This is my television debut,” she told me. “And I’m so glad this series is set in the Midlands. I’ve lived and worked here for 25 years.”

“In fact, we’ve frequently worked together,” chipped in her television husband, Brian Kent. Now, as Dick Jarvis, he is an ex-public school man who cannot readily slot into a steady job. In the series he is in partnership with Victor Amos (Anthony Howard) in a car-hire business. Most of his endeavours end in failure; the hire business looks decidedly shaky.

Other regular members of the series drifted over to exchange views. Like Meg’s son. Sandy, played by 18-year-old Roger Tonge, one-time G.P.O. clerk. “Big break for me,” he said, seriously. “Lucky I don’t look much older than the 15-year-old character I’m playing.”

Anthony Morton, who plays Carlos, the motel chef, evidently had appreciated someone else’s cooking. In the series he’s happy-go-lucky, occasionally temperamental, and at times warring with Meg Richardson.

“But I don’t have time to be temperamental in real life,” he said. “In a hectic series like this, we all depend on teamwork.”

Peggy Aitchison, who plays Mrs. Violet Blundell, the daily help, engaged in deep conversation with Christine, the motel waitress. Both are experienced actresses. Peggy has been on the stage 13 years, both in rep and in television.

Alex Marshall, who plays Christine, is 26, from Smethwick, married with a six-year-old son and has also done rep, television and documentary work.

There, too, was the other regular member of the motel staff, Philip Winter, played by six-footer Malcolm Young. In the series, he’s rather the mystery man, a deserter from the Army who works as a sort of general help. He is another actor who has worked extensively in the Midlands.

I also met David Fennell, 20, who plays Brian Jarvis, son of Kitty and Dick Jarvis, who works in a drawing office. David worked as a fashion photographer and even tried his hand a bullfighting before turning to drama. He has worked in a film of the life of Shakespeare and in a teenage pop show.

He presented his “fiancee,” Janice Gifford, a helper in the general store, played by 21-year-old Carolyn Lyster, from Cheshire, and veteran Shakesperean actor George Skillan, the Jarvis lodger Owen Webb.

Harry Shiels, cheerful Birmingham-born actor who plays Harry Leggett, landlord of the nearby “Crown” and unofficial “father confessor” of the neighbourhood, grinned when he told me: “Well at least I’m not doing pantomime this year.

“I used to play opposite the late Vic Oliver in ‘Old King Cole.’ Did it eight times with him.” Main feature that former Navy man Harry likes about Crossroads is the opportunity to live at home.

One by one, the regulars of the series slipped out of the restaurant.

I collected my notes thinking that the signposts at the Crossroads pointed very definitely to success.

CROSSROADS IN VIEW

The Midlands. A place of spreading industrialisation, progress. Crossroads, ITV’s new daily serial, draws out the colour and dimension of this new world. And playing one of the leading parts is Noele Gordon. The programme, by its own day-to-day nature, is an immense challenge to any actor or actress. But Noele, who plays a widowed mother of a young family who also owns a motel, is used to long, strenuous, successful runs. Many will remember her in “Brigadoon,” which ran for over a thousand performances.