Nancy Banks-Smith wants it made perfectly clear: “I don’t watch Neighbours.” Still, the Guardian TV critic managed to catch such milestones as the show’s 1,000th episode and the freak wave that swept Harold Bishop off to sea. So, on the day that Australia’s longest-running soap opera celebrates its 30th anniversary, we offer you three of her choicest Neighbours reviews from the Guardian archives. Remember Madge “scanning the bounding main in vain” for Harold, that cameo from the Queen, and the days when Ramsay Street celebrated Christmas in June? No, Nancy doesn’t either.
Crossroads in the sun (September 1990)
Neighbours’ 1,000th episode celebration was a jolly Oz affair, remarkable for its irreverence and ruched purple curtains. The presenter was a curly-headed bloke called Mike, built along the lines of Uluru, and carrying an impressive book stamped Neighbours, which, he candidly confided, was really the A-K telephone directory.
The “Queen” made a surprise appearance. She seemed in higher spirits than usual but having a degree of difficulty with her vowels, which kept trying to get away, like an insufficiently secured kangaroo. “Those of you who have been awaiting a residual royalty from Britain, wait no longer. Here I am!” said this merry monarch.
Garth Gibbs, described as a royal-watcher, said: “Princess Diana was a fan of Neighbours.” Garth knew because she had asked the BBC press office for two episodes she had missed. And, if I know the BBC press office, they said she would have to come to Television Centre to watch them in the basement.
I don’t watch Neighbours myself. I am aware of it. It seeps unseen into your consciousness like rain through your sole. How else would I know that in Ramsay Street they have Kellogg’s Froot Loops for breakfast?
Reg Watson, who produced Neighbours, used to produce Crossroads for Central TV and you can quite see the resemblance. It is Brum in the sun. There is even the same bijou pool, open to non-residents, into which when the action palls, somebody falls. Old soaps never die, they simply emigrate and return to haunt you.
So how come we don’t have Froot Loops too?
Apparently it was a freak wave (September 1992)
I want to make it perfectly clear I don’t watch Neighbours. No. I just happened to be passing through the room when Harold Bishop was swept off a rock by a freak wave. Ian Smith, who plays Harold, is charmingly candid about this contretemps. It seems there was a difference of opinion about his pay.
When this happens, actors do tend to be swept off rocks. After a small kerfuffle in The Archers, I remember Brian Aldridge opened his script and was startled to read: “Brian falls down in an epileptic fit.” It is nature’s way of telling you to call your lawyer.
As Madge Bishop scanned the bounding main in vain, the police asked tactlessly: “How would you describe Harold’s mental state?” This is a difficult question to answer about anyone in Neighbours. Precarious would, perhaps, come close. Everyone says that Harold is with Kerry in heaven. I take Kerry to be some deceased family dog, though you can’t be sure because many Australians are called after dogs.
Harold’s body has not been found so he may come boomeranging back like Dulcie, a pigeon on Coronation Street. Jack Duckworth’s farewell to Dulcie was easily the most moving valediction of them all: “Eh, there’s been some good times. I’ve told you things I wouldn’t tell my best mate. D’you remember? You kept it all to yourself, didn’t you? What more could a man ask?”
One thing that Dulcie was keeping to herself was that only a birdbrain like Jack would try to give away a homing pigeon.
Christmas Day in Ramsay Street (June 1997)
Neighbours is unusually disorientating. It seems to be Christmas in Ramsay Street. Something to do with the rotation of the Earth, I imagine. Harold, who has returned from the dead or New Zealand, is practising the tuba. Turkeys are practising the 100-yard dash. The younger members of the cast are practising acting.
Lou tries to bury the hatchet, Mal has a life-threatening accident and Karl performs an emergency operation with makeshift implements. Stone me, not with Lou’s hatchet? That’ll be Christmas Day all right. Something like that always happens on Christmas Day.
