NEW TV shows Funny Woman and Nolly have used the former Pilkington headquarters as a filming site.

St Helens is once again on our small screens as a backdrop of the latest dramas on ITV and Sky.

Nolly, starring BAFTA award-winning star Helena Bonham-Carter as the title character and written by Doctor Who and It’s a Sin writer Russell T Davies, tells the story of Noele Gordon (or Nolly to her friends) who was a legend in her own lifetime.

St Helens Star:

As flame-haired widow Meg Richardson in the long-running soap opera Crossroads, she was one of the most famous people in Britain.

Then in 1981, at the height of the show’s success and the peak of Nolly’s fame, she was axed without ceremony, without warning and with no explanation.

With the boss’s words “all good things must come to an end” ringing in her ears, Noele Gordon found herself thrown out of the show that was her life for over 18 years.

The Pilkington headquarters site is used as the studio backdrop in the show, which is available to watch on ITVX.

Commenting on the series, Helena Bonham Carter said: “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.”

St Helens Star:

The Alexandra Park site is also being used in Funny Woman, starring Gemma Arterton as Barbara Parker - the force of nature who takes 1960s London by storm.

Her journey from Blackpool beauty queen to comedy superstar and nation’s sweetheart is based on ‘Funny Girl’ the best-selling novel by Nick Hornby.

It's the latest TV drama to use St Helens as a location after ITV show Maternal used the site as a hospital backdrop,

BBC’s The Responder used various St Helens locations and film crews have also filmed in the area for the forthcoming Marvel series The Secret Invasion and Paramount + drama Sexy Beast.