Noel McManus is a Year 11 student at Waterloo Road High School and a close friend of Dean Weever.
Series 11[]
Noel is usually seen hanging around with his best mate Dean, and at the start of the series, they oppose the school's name change from William Beswick to Waterloo Road, mostly just to wind up the other pupils.
After Danny Lewis punches Noel and fights Dean, leading to Danny and Dean being sent to the Behavioural Unit (BU), Noel, Dean and Danny get in trouble with Joe Casey and Lindon King after Danny and Dean are discovered smoking weed in the toilets of the BU, smuggled to them by Noel through the window. Noel and Dean pretend they have no idea where the weed came from and Danny protects them by saying he brought it, but Lindon knows he lied and tells the police the school have no clue who got it onto the premises. Dean later confesses the truth.
Noel is elected Year 11's student council representative over Samia Choudhry, but is annoyed when he finds out that the role requires actual work.
Noel also helps Samia to find out who is behind the 'Hot or Not' group chat in which some of the other boys rate the girls' looks, when he and Samia sneak into the boys' changing rooms and look at the group chat on one of the boys' phones.
Series 12[]
At the start of Series 12, Noel helps Dean with a surprise illicit makeshift barbecue for Dean's girlfriend Kelly Jo, but it goes wrong when a teacher catches them and the barbecue catches fire.
Later in the series, the school puts on a charity fundraising run, and Dean pranks Noel by telling him that it is fancy dress, and Noel turns up dressed as a cardboard jukebox, with a hidden laptop to play music from. This later ends up a vital help however, as when Preston Walters suffers a cardiac arrest during the run, Noel plays music to help Kai Sharif to perform CPR to the beat, saving Preston's life.
At the end of the series, Noel hosts the school's new radio show 'Radio Waterloo Road' alongside Caz Williams, until it is interrupted by an unstable Myles Massey, who kicks them out of the recording booth, locks himself in, and rants over the mic for the school to hear. After Danny Lewis later perishes in a fire started by Myles, Noel leads the pupils in singing "Before you Go" by Lewis Capaldi as a tribute to Danny.
Series 13[]
In Series 13, Dean and Noel create a fake social media profile in Coral Walker's name and use it to catfish Neil Guthrie, with the eventual help of Kelly Jo as well as a new pupil named Declan, whom Noel befriends as part of the school's mentoring scheme. Neil thinks that he and Coral have been chatting each other up online, and eventually Dean and Noel send a picture of Dean's feet to Neil pretending they are Coral's, but this causes Neil to confront Coral in-person, and she reveals that she had nothing to do with it, and Dean and Noel are caught out.
After Kelly Jo discovers her father might have been Jamaican, the school puts on an educational 'Jamaica Day', which includes a few pupils including Noel being roped in to help cook Jamaican food. Noel campaigns unsuccessfully for the school to also do a 'Mexican Day', revealing a penchant for cooking nachos.
Later in the series, school dinner lady Nicky Walters hires a new canteen assistant called Parveen, who is revealed to have been a former babysitter of Noel's from when he was younger. Parveen leaves her baby son Tyson at the school while she is working, and Noel and Dean chance upon the child and look after him for a short while, and when Tyson starts crying, the duo find themselves adept with babies. It is also hinted that Noel has a crush on Parveen.
Noel is also among the students who are forced to come in on inset day to catch up on revision, ending with the teacher Marc Todd being locked in the cupboard by Schuey Weever and the students running amok in the staffroom.
On the last day of term, the highest-attendance pupils are given vouchers for free pizza as a reward for their high attendance. Noel, not the recipient of one, steals Shola Aku's voucher and photocopies it so that everyone can have free pizza.
Series 14[]
In Series 14 Episode 1, Noel ends his friendship with Dean after Dean bullies Libby Guthrie.
During this series, Noel starts a band with Preston Walters and, temporarily, Billy Savage.
In Episode 4, Noel accidentally lets slip to headteacher Steve Savage that music teacher Val Chambers gave the students crib sheets to help them in their mock music exam, and Steve orders the class to resit the mock. Noel, while gifted musically, struggles too much with the theory, and walks out of the mock exam after being unable to write anything. Val convinces him to go back in, but he doesn't do well.
Also during this episode, Kelly Jo starts thinking that Noel might have developed a crush on her but she doesn't like him back. However, she later realises at the Battle of the Bands night that Noel really has a crush on her mother Debs, who is working as a school cleaner.
In Episode 6, he becomes convinced that Debs likes him back after overhearing a phone conversation about appreciating someone for their help. He makes her a pizza with every topping except mushroom because she said on the phone call about hating mushrooms, but when he takes it to her he finds her talking flirtatiously with a caretaker, who is the actual object of her affections. He is dejected afterwards, but ends up embarking on an unexpected relationship with Stace Neville after giving her the pizza instead.
Preston is annoyed by Stace's subsequent constant presence at their band practices and leaves the band, but later changes his mind and the two make up. After the police take Preston in as a suspect in the murder of Boz Osbourne, Noel scrabbles desperately for proof that it wasn't him, but merely ends up giving the police an alibi for the wrong night, and only after they have already released Preston anyway.
At the end of the series, Noel organises a 'surprise' 18th birthday party for Preston, but is terrible at keeping it secret from him, unbeknownst to himself. Preston is delighted at the party all the same, and calls Noel his 'best mate'.
Series 15[]
Trivia[]
• Noel shares his surname with series creator Ann McManus. Whether this was intentional or not is unconfirmed, but it more than likely was intentional.
Quotes[]
- "It's history, man!" (first audible line)
- Noel: "Nah, it depends on the situation, innit? Like, if it's just a wallop in the goolies-"
- Samia: "There's something properly wrong with you."
- Shola: "What about Black Lives Matter week of action? Or MeToo at school?"
- Noel: "Chill out, Greta Toolbox, honestly! Right, this is how it is. Vote for Noel, there will be absolute scenes, yeah? Be well good."
- "Oh yeah! Yeah, cheers, Noel! Sorry that I thought you and your two mates were two sexist pigs, yeah? Hey, Sami, happy to do your dirty work any time!"
- "Hey, look, the only dodgy thing you're finding on me, yeah, Miss, is my dirty undies!"
- "Yo, is it true what everyone's saying about uh...your mum getting it on with the caretaker and Miss Spratt?"
- "Loads, you said, mate, yeah, loads! Yeah, Preston Walters in a chicken suit, yeah? You said everyone was coming in fancy dress, you did!"
- "You know, Preston coulda died! You know, in fact, he still might die! You're sick you!"
- Noel: "OK, it's back to classes now, but stick around after school for more massive noise, massive sounds, massive tunes."
- Caz: "And a massive gob!"
- Noel: "Look, stay calm, relax. It's all good, Kim."
- Kim: "Excuse me?"
- Noel: "Well, I just thought cos I'm your producer now, we could keep it a bit more casual, innit?"
- Kim: "No."
- Dean: "Maybe we can even get the sad cow a man! Friend request a couplea desperate saddos."
- Noel: "Yeah. Well, doesn't get more desperate than Grumpy Guthrie."
- "When I were a kid, um, I refused to eat anything except, like, nuggets and chips, and, my nan took us to a Mexican...Mexican place down the road, and uh...I were fuming, me, they had no fried food or anything, but, uh, they had these, and, I tried them, and, it was like a whole world opened up for me. You gotta try things, innit? Never know what you might like."
- Noel: "Well, d'you want me to sing him a lullaby?"
- Dean: "If you start singing, I'll start crying!"
- "Hey mate, still got me, yeah? Hey, d'you want to see me kick myself in the head again, yeah?"
- Dean: "Hey, come on, bruv."
- Noel: "I'm not your bruv, yeah? Not any more."
- Kelly Jo: "You uh...play guitar, don't you?"
- Noel: "Yeah. No-one spanks the plank like me."
- "Mr Savage is a muppet who's got it in for anyone - anyone, right - who thinks differently to him!"
- "Look, if you're into someone, you can't be messing about, alright? Cos you'll miss your chance. And, I hate to say it, but..it's up to you to put it right. Yeah? And the sooner the better. But, if you wanna make something happen, make it happen. D'you know what I mean?"
- Stace: "I always thought you were a bit of an idiot, but...you're actually alright. "
- Noel: "I do try my best."
- Stace: "Cop off with us sometime, if you want."
- Noel: "Right."
- Debs: "Right, Noel, listen, you can't get rid of Preston, cos he's the eye candy. It runs in the family."
- Noel: "Um, no. I think Stace's right, yeah? He's a little bit too emo. Yeah? 'Let's write a song about issues'. It's not rock and roll, is it?"
- Debs: "Noel...you go to your nan's every night and watch Pointless."