It is a chilly day outside Nunawading Studios but the cast of Neighbours remain chipper as they quickly pull bulky padded jackets over their finest summer clothes during a break from filming. It is always hot and sunny in Erinsborough, the fictional suburb where the soap opera is set, but that can be a problem when shooting takes place during the heart of a Melbourne winter. The cast are attending a wedding – because there is always a wedding on Neighbours. In March 1985, it all began with a wedding. When the show ended in July last year, it bowed out with a wedding. And now, when the show returns later this month, it will again begin with a wedding. Some things never change – except that Jeff Bezos is now footing the bill to ensure this very grey Melbourne day has blue skies on-screen.
It was a shock when Neighbours was cancelled after 37 years and a staggering 8,903 episodes. Then after just three months off the air, it was announced that the soap would be returning – this time with the backing of the streaming giant Amazon. It was also, clearly, a shock to the cast.
“It felt like being told someone you love has died and then someone saying, ‘Actually, they’re behind that curtain!’” says Jackie Woodburne, who plays teacher Susan Kennedy, who infamously slipped on some milk, got amnesia and thought she was 16 again. Did Woodburne have any second thoughts about coming back? “Nup,” she says, immediately.
“I did,” says Alan Fletcher, AKA Dr Karl Kennedy, the character addicted to getting nude, sometimes with his wife, sometimes just for lunch. “I think it was for two seconds, maybe three.”
On the whole, public reaction to the news was more bewildered than ecstatic: Neighbours hadn’t been away long enough for nostalgia to truly brew, nor has it returned quickly enough to make it seem like a mere blip. What made Amazon step in? Apparently, it was down to the show’s ending – and the warm reaction given to the star-stuffed nuptials of the finale.
“I had it in my heart and in my hopes that maybe the show would come back one day,” says Jason Herbison, Neighbour’s longtime executive producer, a man who can say with complete sincerity things like: “Well, we could have done a plane crash, or a car crash, but a wedding is nice.” Herbison adds: “I didn’t think it would happen so quickly, but that’s all power to the fans.”
Stefan Dennis – Erinsborough’s resident villain, Paul Robinson, who has had six wives, innumerable affairs and was once held hostage down a mineshaft – chips in: “My first questions to Jason were, ‘Is it going to change? Are we going to Americanise it?’ But he said, ‘No, we’re fighting tooth and nail to keep it like it is.’ I use the analogy of the person who buys a successful restaurant. They change the menu and the tablecloths – and the restaurant goes broke. I didn’t want to see Neighbours go broke because of too much Americanisation. We’re iconic because we are this quirky Australian show.”
The reasons some people are dismissive of Neighbours are often the very same reasons fans love it. The show is, on the whole, about ordinary life in Australia’s suburbs, its dramas mostly minor, domestic affairs. Kids get into bother at school. Robinson commits light fraud. Occasionally, Toadie, the troubled teenager turned laid-back lawyer, drives a wife off a cliff on their wedding day (he has had a few wives). And perhaps even a tornado turns up. But Neighbours is, on the whole, loved for its ordinariness.
Along with iron ore and the Hemsworth brothers, Neighbours became a huge Aussie export in the 80s and 90s, a hit in the sort of countries where even a suburb can look exotic if it is sun-drenched enough. At its peak, it was often Britain’s highest-rating daytime programme. It launched the careers of some of Australia’s most famous names: Margot Robbie, Guy Pearce, Ben Mendelsohn, Russell Crowe, Natalie Imbruglia. But as time went on, Australia’s appetite began to dwindle, as did its funding. By the end, Neighbours was mostly bankrolled by the UK’s Channel 5, and when it bailed, the show followed Toadie’s wife off the cliff.
It was an ignominious end to what had been an unparalleled place for actors to cut their teeth. Neighbours was always made at breakneck speed, with five episodes filmed every week. Robbie said the show taught her “an incredible discipline – you can work really, really fast”. Annie Jones, who plays Jane Harris (originally known as Plain Jane Superbrain), echoes this point: “It’s ideal training for any department, because this is as hard as it’ll get. The pace is addictive. I was a six-week guest, then a 10-week guest, then they said, ‘Look, want to just stay?’”
“I was thinking, ‘I’ll do a year,’” says Rebekah Elmaloglou, who has now spent a decade playing Terese Willis, the hard-working good mum and former alcoholic. “It is always just a year,” adds Ryan Moloney, now in his 28th year as Toadie.
Many of the crew on Neighbours also have deep connections to the show. Herbison got his first job as a storyliner, aged 18, after sending in a letter listing everything he felt was wrong about the show: “You can’t ask your audience to love a show unless you love it,” he says. Ash Cottrell, one of the show’s two art directors, once had a minor role. “Twenty-four lines and an on-screen pash!” she says. “But that’s another life.”
On the last day of filming, the cast and crew got together to agree about what they would steal from the set. A black-and-white photo of Karl Kennedy with a big moustache was hotly contested. “As soon as they said, ‘Cut!’, I ran and put it under my jacket,” says Fletcher. “Stefan was going around blatantly putting stickers on things.”
Then last November, Herbison paid a sudden visit to each of “The Heritage Four” – Dennis, Fletcher, Woodburne and Moloney – to share the news about Amazon’s reboot. Would they come back? It wasn’t a given. “I had warmed to the idea that I didn’t have to work full-time any more,” Dennis says. “Actors don’t tend to retire – they die.” Elmaloglou had moved far away. Lloyd Will, who plays unshaven Erinsborough cop Andrew Rodwell, had begun working as a plumber. Moloney went off to train in civil construction so he could build a farm, which he calls “Chateau Shithole”.
“I have spent more of my life on Neighbours than off it,” says Moloney, who is 43 and has been playing Toadie since he was 15. “It’s an interesting dynamic, to go from being famous to being nothing. I did think twice. But when the producer is sitting there in front of you, you go, ‘Well, hang on a second. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity – for an iconic show to wrap up, then get a rebirth as well.’”
The Heritage Four were sworn to secrecy until Amazon made its announcement. None of the rest of the cast knew. “Those were a long few days,” says Fletcher. “I didn’t even tell my wife. She’s a journalist!” After the announcement, the rest of the shellshocked cast were told to sit tight while Amazon individually approved their returns. Will had no idea if he would be picking up the handcuffs again: “Everyone was like, ‘Are you going back?’ I was like, ‘Nah I don’t think so. They wouldn’t want me back!’”
The cast were asked to return everything they stole, while the crew spent weeks hunting down old props, cutting back the plants creeping over the now abandoned Lassiters hotel, and seeking out bits of Harold’s cafe, some of which had been repurposed for other shows. Many parts were never found.
Amazon money means Amazon ambition. For the first time ever, many of Neighbours’ theatrical, three-walled sets now have a fourth wall, which means sweepingly cinematic 360-degree shots are possible. “We were a little stuck in our ways,” admits producer Andrew Thompson. “We’re a little more aspirational now.”
The streaming giant has also brought in big names, including The OC star Mischa Barton as a mysterious American newcomer. “My boy Tom is 25 and has never watched Neighbours in his life,” says Fletcher. “It paid for his education! But when the announcement came out about Mischa, my phone pings and it’s my son going, ‘OMG! Mischa Barton! OC! I’m going to have to watch!’”
And then there’s Guy Pearce, who returned as Mike Young in the finale, alongside Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, the trio back on the show that made them famous. Fletcher recalls: “Guy said a confab went on between a lot of characters, text messages saying, ‘Are you going back?’ And everyone just said, ‘We must. We need to pay homage.’”
In the finale, Mike finally got his girl, Plain Jane Superbrain, and moved back to Ramsay Street. Pearce is in the reboot too: in multiple episodes, promises Herbison, “and for more than just a moment – it is very meaningful”. Pearce and Jones filmed some of their scenes at a secret location in the UK. “Guy is such a beautiful person,” says Jones, who has what she can and can’t reveal written down on a sheet of paper. “He wants to do right by Mike and all the fans.”
Intriguingly, and in a very Neighbours way, Herbison and the cast are keen to stress that the show is going to be different but also the same. “The finale was a goodbye hug,” says Herbison. “I want this to be a welcome back hug. But at the same time, we want the show to be accessible to a new audience.”
Apparently, having Americans involved was very helpful in this respect since they had no idea who anyone was. “Through their questions and feedback,” says Herbison, “we’ve been able to explain, for a new audience, who someone is and what they’re doing.” He pauses then adds: “But sometimes their backstory is too hard to explain.”
• Neighbours returns on 18 September on Amazon Freevee, and will air Monday-Thursday on 10 Peach and 10 Play in Australia.
