After 37 years the final episode of Australia’s longest-running TV soap opera, Neighbours, is going to air.
“I’m absolutely thrilled that we’re not a show limping to the end, we’re going out on an enormous high,” executive producer Jason Herbison told AAP.
Some of its biggest stars including Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan have returned to the fictional suburb of Erinsborough for the three-episode finale, airing back-to-back on Thursday.
To get a sense of just how long the show has been around, that would be episodes 8901, 8902 and 8903.
The production team worked hard to ensure the finale has something for every generation of Ramsay Street fans, from 1985 onwards, Herbison said.
“I really hope people watch and take a minute to think about what Neighbours has meant to them, and when the curtain has come down, hold a piece of it in their hearts,” he said.
The show has been a cultural export for decades and has a large audience in the UK, where the cul-de-sac cricket, backyard pools and sunny weather that feature in the show’s opening credits have come to represent an Australian lifestyle.
One of the show’s most iconic moments was the wedding of Donovan’s Scott Mitchell and Minogue’s Charlene Robinson, which aired in 1987.
Two million Australians and almost 20 million British viewers tuned in.
The wedding scene, complete with Minogue’s lacy dress, Donovan’s mullet, coral-coloured bridesmaids’ outfits and an Angry Anderson soundtrack, became a touchstone of ’80s television in Australia.
It was thrilling to work with the show’s biggest stars on their return for the finale, Herbison said.
“They definitely didn’t want it to be all about them, they wanted to be part of the celebration and to say ‘thank you’ for what the show has done for them.”
The show announced its cancellation in March following the loss of its main UK broadcast partner, Channel 5.
© AAP 2022
