SOME people may often forget that it was Channel Seven that launched the concept of soap in Australia. The nostalgic Sons & Daughters started it all in 1982 and then it launched Neighbours three years later. The latter wasn’t a success and defected to rivals Channel Ten the following year and became so successful that Seven decided to get its own back. Thus, Home and Away was born in 1988.
Set in Summer Bay; a fictional seaside town on the coast of Melbourne, the concept behind the show was to aim it towards a family audience compared to Neighbours, which was targeted more at just the youth. Early episodes largely focused on the Fletcher family, Tom (Roger Oakley), Pippa (Debra Lawrance) and their adoptive daughter Sally (Kate Ritchie) along with the Stewart couple of Alf (Ray Meagher) and Alisa (Judy Nunn).
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| START: A young Dannii Minogue made her breakthrough in Home & Away |
This initial plan didn’t really work and soon enough, the show extended towards other residents, along with the local businesses. Several people got their big break through the show, including Dannii Minogue and the late Heath Ledger. During the nineties, popular new characters came in, including Shannon Reed (Isla Fisher), Angel Parrish (Melissa George), Shane Parrish (Dieter Brummer), Marilyn Chambers (Emily Symons) and Fisher (Norman Coburn).
Home and Away made its arrival onto British television in 1990 with ITV broadcasting the soap after the BBC turned down the rights to concentrate on funding for Neighbours. Together with popular quiz show Blockbusters, with the ITN News sandwiched in-between, ITV had finally created a combination to take on the BBC on weekday teatimes.
Going into the new millennium and Home and Away started a severe decline Down Under. Constantly being thrashed in the ratings by Neighbours, it was criticised for trying to copy Ramsay Street’s way of storylines and then taking it over the top. Meanwhile, it was rocked even further in January 2000 with the news that ITV wouldn’t be renewing its contract in order to fund for more original daytime programmes, namely a revival of the classic soap Crossroads. Channel 5 duly picked up the rights, beating off stiff competition from Channel 4 and Sky. However, due to legal documentation which I won’t go into, it would not return to UK screens until July 2001. In the ten years that it has aired, Channel 5 has done a remarkable job to now only lie a few weeks behind Australian transmission.
Over in Australia, Seven ordered a facelift of the show in 2004, but denied it was a “last chance” revamp. Some of the sets were given neat makeovers, a whole host of new faces came in and the show switched into a new picture format, giving it a film-like effect that was being demonstrated in British soaps Hollyoaks and Doctors. Bevan Lee, who was serving as series producer at the time of the revamp, left but decided to stay on until the end of the 2004 season to allow a strong transition into new producer Dan Bennett. Bennett built on the wide praise from the 2004 relaunch, by continuing to dramatically extend the cast and commission storylines and plots that Home and Away had never touched before. By now, the soap was being targeted to youngsters, with the arrival of popular teen characters such as Ric Dalby (Mark Furze), Cassie Turner (Sharni Vinson), Lucas Holden (Rhys Wakefield) and Matilda Hunter (Indiana Evans).
One element that makes Home and Away standout from any other soap is disasters. During the two and a bit decades it has been on the air, there has been an earthquake, a landslide, a hurricane, a cyclone, several fires, a helicopter disaster which left many characters stranded in a remote forest for over a month and countless car crashes. It’s no wonder why Inside Soap magazine has labelled Summer Bay as soap’s most dangerous town!
The murder of corrupt mayor Josh West (Daniel Collopy) in 2006 signalled change of direction in Home and Away. Despite still being broadcast in a 7pm slot on Seven, and 6pm on Channel 5, more darker and grittier storylines were rolled out which included a continuing storyline the previous year of Eve Jacobson (Emily Perry). Eve was a possessed stalker who coming back from the dead to enact revenge in blowing up the reception building at the wedding between Jack Holden (Paul O’Brien) and Martha Mackenzie (Jodi Gordon), leaving everyone’s lives at risk. The end of the 2006 saw gangster Johnny Cooper (Callan Mulvey) begin to terrorise the town in a two-year period, during which Sally Fletcher was hospitalised twice for being stabbed.
Despite these shock twists, it made compelling viewing and by now Home and Away was miles ahead of Neighbours in Australia and was often picking up awards for it. The show’s 20th anniversary in 2008 promised a nostalgic element to the show throughout the year. It also though saw the departure of many popular characters, especially the farewell of Sally, who left to travel the world. Although new faces came in, many would argue that they would have a lot of work to do to better the class that began in 1988 and came in through the 2000s revival of what seemed to be a dying format.
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| STRONG: Home and Away still has a good following of fans |
Recently, the show has returned to its roots and although still features the odd dramatic element now and again; it has now taken a lighter and pleasurable approach. Its reception in both Australia and the UK remains good and I predict that Home and Away should still be on everyone’s screens for many years to come.
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