Soap has given opportunities to actors, writers and production staff, says Philip Ralph on last day of filming
A screenwriter has described the decision to axe the daytime drama Doctors as “disastrous” and said soaps are collapsing as he marked the last day of filming the show.
The BBC announced in October the show would end in December this year due to “super inflation in drama production”.
Continue reading...Actor and singer was first diagnosed with brain cancer in 2017 and revealed it was terminal last August
Johnny Ruffo, the former Home and Away actor and X Factor contestant, has died aged 35.
Ruffo was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2017, and underwent surgery to remove a tumour, but the cancer returned three years later. Last August, Ruffo revealed that his diagnosis was terminal.
Continue reading...Actor’s manager says the Daytime Emmy-winning star ‘was struggling with manic depression’ when he died in Austin, Texas
Billy Miller, a Daytime Emmy-winning actor best known for his roles on US soaps The Young and the Restless and General Hospital, has died aged 43.
In a statement to Variety, his manager, Marnie Sparer, said Miller “was struggling with manic depression when he died”.
Continue reading...Soap star who also acted in Coronation Street, Brookside and the musical Chicago, had dementia, her family said
The soap opera stalwart Meg Johnson has died at the age of 86 after having had dementia “for the last few years”, it has been confirmed.
The death of Johnson, who had played Pearl Ladderbanks in Emmerdale since 2003, was announced in a joint statement from her family, the talent agency Jorg Betts Associates and the ITV show.
Continue reading...The English Australian actor, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, died at home in Sydney in December
Neighbours and A Country Practice actor Joan Sydney has died at the age of 83.
The English Australian actor, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, died at her Sydney home on 28 December. Her long-time friend and fellow actor Sally-Anne Upton confirmed the news on social media on Friday.
Continue reading...Australian soap ends after nearly four decades with double-episode special on Channel 5
Three million viewers tuned in to say goodbye to Ramsay Street as Neighbours came to a close after almost four decades of constant drama.
The final episode of the Australian soap aired on Friday night in the UK on Channel 5, with stars including Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce and Margot Robbie making one last appearance on the show that brought them fame.
Continue reading...Hollywood actor will play Donna Freedman one more time as Australian soap comes to an end
The Oscar-nominated actor Margot Robbie will join a handful of international stars returning to Ramsay Street for the final episode of the long-running Australian soap Neighbours.
The 32-year-old, who starred in The Suicide Squad and is playing Barbie in Greta Gerwig’s forthcoming film, will return to her role as Donna Freedman in the Australian soap.
Continue reading...Alan Fletcher and Jackie Woodburne – who play Karl and Susan – reflect as fans prepare for final episode to air
The Neighbours stalwarts Alan Fletcher and Jackie Woodburne, who played Karl and Susan Kennedy in the Australian soap opera, have said they shared “a few tears and a lot of hugs” as their 28-year stint on the show came to an end.
With the Neighbours finale due to air later this month, some of the show’s longest-standing actors have been reflecting on their time on set and working alongside future Hollywood stars.
Continue reading...Show shared final photo of cast and crew on final day of filming when ‘tears were shed’
Neighbours has shared a final photo of its cast and crew after filming wrapped on the last scene of the long-running Australian soap opera.
The show’s executive producer revealed tears were shed on the final day of filming but feels its 37-year run is an “incredible achievement” that should be celebrated.
Continue reading...The TV couple are to appear in Australia’s long-running soap opera as production ends after 37 years
They were one of television’s most popular couples, and now they’re getting back together, especially for you – or at least for viewers of Neighbours. Scott and Charlene, played by Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue, will return after more than 30 years for the show’s finale.
Jason Herbison, executive producer of the Australian soap, said the pair were “the ultimate Neighbours couple and it would not feel right to end the show without them”.
Continue reading...The Australian soap has kept me hooked since 1986, becoming a major part of my daily existence – even when I didn’t have a TV signal. Ramsay Street, you will be missed
• Beloved soap Neighbours to end after 37 years on air
From the upbeat opening bars of its theme tune and the declaration that “Everybody needs good neighbours”, Neighbours was like a blast of fresh air blowing across British TV screens in 1986. Here was a show that was on BBC One twice a day; lunchtime and a repeat in the late afternoon. This was when Netflix was but a twinkle in Reed Hastings’s eye and a “streaming service” was probably a water-feature option offered by landscape gardeners. You watched Neighbours or you missed it.
Centred on Ramsay Street, the Lassiters hotel complex, and the lives of the Ramsays and the Robinsons (think Jim Robinson and mother-in-law Helen Daniels), it was soon a must-watch for students in the UK because – despite being watched “ironically”, however one does that – it had young people at its heart. This is the show that brought us Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Guy Pearce and Panda from The Masked Singer, Natalie Imbruglia. Talk about a hit factory. But, wandering the banks of Lassiters lake, we were also in the company of Harold and Madge, Dr Karl and Susan Kennedy, “Toadfish” Rebecchi and more. But now, the curtain falls. After almost 9,000 episodes, Neighbours is to come to an end.
Continue reading...With the Aussie soap finally confirmed to end, we celebrate the best moments from 37 years on Ramsay Street – including plenty of twists, weddings and a tornado
Once upon a time, Neighbours had good friends. But with producers Fremantle failing to find a new UK backer to save the Aussie soap, Neighbours is set to end in June after a groundbreaking 37-year run.
First airing on the Seven Network in 1985, it was taken over by Channel 10 just four months after launch and was transformed into water cooler fodder and a Logies award generating machine. At its peak, more than one million Australians tuned in each night to catch up on the exploits of these “typical” Aussie families living in a cul-de-sac in suburban Melbourne.
Continue reading...The show where household names such as Margot Robbie and Kylie Minogue had their start will wrap for the last time in June
The Australian soap Neighbours will shoot its final scene in June following a record 37-year run, after producers Fremantle failed to secure another UK broadcaster.
The series, which launched the international careers of countless stars including Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Margot Robbie and Guy Pearce, is the longest-running drama series on Australian television and was so popular in Britain it has been bankrolled by Channel 5 since 2008.
Continue reading...The drama won hearts by showing the world Australian suburbia – albeit with regular light plane crashes and bouts of amnesia
When they let you through the security gate at the Neighbours studio, something magical happens. It’s not finding out the food at Harold’s is real, though it is. And it’s not realising the Erinsborough High quad is also where they filmed Prisoner, though that’s true too.
No, stepping into that Nunawading studio is a wormhole to a simpler time, where no one has a real job, drama is just drama, and the people next door have become good friends.
Continue reading...Longest-running programme in Australian television history loses out to homegrown British drama
The residents of Ramsay Street have survived almost four decades of affairs, disasters and terrible haircuts – but in the end it might be the popularity of a 1930s Yorkshire vet that finally kills off Neighbours.
The long-running soap opera that launched the careers of Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce and Margot Robbie faces the axe after Channel 5 confirmed it would stop airing the series this summer. The broadcaster no longer wants to spend millions of pounds a year on the show and is instead looking to use its programme budget to reach upmarket audiences with original British dramas – driven by the success of All Creatures Great And Small, its hit revival of the series about rural life in the Yorkshire Dales.
Continue reading...Network Ten to pause filming after Channel 5 announces it will stop airing the show in August
The Australian soap Neighbours, which launched the international careers of countless local stars including Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Margot Robbie and Guy Pearce, has been axed in the UK in a move likely to sound the death knell for the iconic show.
The UK’s Channel 5 announced it would no longer air the program and unless it is picked up by another UK broadcaster the show will end its record-breaking 36-year run in August.
Continue reading...He became a stand-in for the family I couldn’t see – a paternal character who comforted me amid the loneliness and uncertainty
For the past 20 years there have been a handful of constants in my life: my family, my best friend and Neighbours. Not neighbours like the people you borrow a cup of sugar from, but rather that sunshine-filled Australian soap you probably stopped watching once you left university.
When I graduated, I carried on. First, out of habit (I needed to know the fate of Toadie’s mullet), but later for its nostalgic continuity and reassurance.
Continue reading...Neighbours launched him, and since then the star of Memento and Zone 414 has seized his Hollywood roles with a unique intensity. He talks about death, drugs, being a dad and divorce
At the start of this century, Guy Pearce was sitting pretty. He had shaken off the frothy soap bubbles of Neighbours, where he was one of the show’s original batch of pin-ups, along with Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, and was proving himself a versatile film actor – first as a sharp-clawed drag artist in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, then as a clench-jawed cop in LA Confidential.
Awaiting release was the existential thriller Memento, directed by a promising up-and-comer named Christopher Nolan. First, though, he heard whispers that Kenneth Turan, the film critic of the LA Times, had been singing his praises in a review of the military courtroom drama Rules of Engagement.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Sharon Johal left the Australian soap last month but says she endured a ‘painful’ four years, alleging ‘direct, indirect and casual racism’ from fellow cast members
One of Neighbours’ longstanding cast members has claimed she endured “direct, indirect and casual racism” on set, including racial slurs and mockery, saying the past four years starring in the long-running Australian soapie were “painful and problematic”.
In a detailed 1,500 word statement provided to Guardian Australia, Sharon Johal said she tried to “deny, bury and ultimately survive” racist taunts allegedly from some of her colleagues. She also claimed that the television show’s production company, Fremantle Media, failed to take any effective action to rein in the alleged behaviour and left her feeling powerless, isolated and marginalised.
Continue reading...Comedians went virtual, Ai Weiwei went to Portugal – and Bake Off pledged the show would go on. In the first of a two-part series, cultural figures look back on a year that shook their industry
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