#The fairwell storyo n the radio plus#
#The fairwell storyo n the radio series#
#The fairwell storyo n the radio tv#

The list of stars who stepped out of Neighbours unscathed is impressive. There were disasters aplenty, including emergency tracheotomies, an explosion at a wedding, the Erinsborough tornado of 2014, the fire at Lassiters (the villainous Paul Robinson was to blame) and, of course, a notorious dream sequence in which Bouncer, Joe Mangel’s dog, falls asleep and fantasises about marrying Rosie, the black-and-white collie next door, and raising puppies.

Harold Bishop was swept out to sea for five years, only to return with amnesia, a contagious condition on the show which also infected Susan Kennedy after she slipped on some milk. Photograph: Fremantle Media/Shutterstock Daft plottingĬredibility was no limit on the kind of storylines that propelled the cast through love affairs, break-ups and bereavements. Harold Bishop strangles the villainous Paul Robinson in the aftermath of a plane crash that devastated the community – one of several eye-opening storylines. After nearly 22 years of entertaining BBC viewers, Neighbours switched to Channel 5 in 2008 because its producer, Fremantle Media, had demanded too much money to renew the deal. The combined audience peaked at more than 21 million by 1990. Repeat episodes also went down well, with BBC One moving its morning repeat of Neighbours’ previous lunchtime show to the early evening, on the advice of the school-age daughter of the then controller of the channel, Michael Grade. But in little more than a decade, all three British soaps had introduced a third weekly episode. Up until the Australian show proved how moreish a regular drama can be, Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale had been going out to their devoted audiences just twice a week. The blanket presence of Neighbours on British screens when it arrived in 1986, in five weekly instalments, shook up the nation’s daytime viewing habits.

#The fairwell storyo n the radio tv#

Prompted by the success of the show and of its rival, Home and Away, in 1995 Redmond, creator of Grange Hill and Brookside, had asked: “Why do we just have to have the Australian stuff?” TV schedules

#The fairwell storyo n the radio plus#

On the plus side, though, it gave Phil Redmond the momentum he needed to finally persuade Channel 4 to make Hollyoaks. The creaky, class-ridden world of British daytime soaps, epitomised by ITV’s The Cedar Tree or Crossroads, took a bit of a “king hit” from Neighbours’ unexpected youth appeal.

#The fairwell storyo n the radio series#

So the fictional suburb became a new ideal, the home of relaxed, English-speaking fun in the sun, and it also rapidly updated the wartime image of a backward Australia portrayed in the Crawford Productions’ popular, long-running drama series The Sullivans. A seat at a table in the Waterhole, the bar at the Lassiters Complex, did not appear out of reach. Erinsborough, a place dreamed up and filmed by Grundy Television at Pin Oak Court near Melbourne, was the sort of environment that audiences in grey Britain could aspire to live in: it was warm and friendly, and much more accessible than the setting of many American soaps.