‘It wasn’t the best way to find out’: Neighbours stars break silence over axing

Amid its second axing, one of the stars of Neighbours recalls the confronting way she found out the TV soap had been cancelled.

As they mark a milestone 40 years on screen, the cast and crew of Neighbours should be celebrating.

But their joy has been tempered by the bittersweet news that the iconic soap has been axed (again), and will end its historic run at the end of the year.

Annie Jones, who has played Jane “Plain Jane Superbrain” Harris on and off since she was a teenager in the 1980s, tells The Binge Guide she’s praying for a lifeline from “someone with deep pockets – perhaps from the UK – [who] sees the value of the show and its enormous fan base.

“I learnt from the last time to never say never,” she adds, referencing Amazon sweeping in to save Neighbours from the TV scrapheap when it was last cancelled in 2022.

“Stranger things have happened before.”

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Indeed they have: Neighbours was originally taken off air just months after it premiered on the Seven Network on March 18, 1985.

Once Network 10 picked it up – and with the shrewd casting of Jones, Guy Pearce (Mike Young), Jason Donovan (Scott Robinson) and Kylie Minogue (Charlene Mitchell) – Erinsborough earned its place on the television map.

Still riding high from the Amazon reboot, Jones says of facing the axe yet again: “I was actually up at 4am getting ready to go to work and having a little scroll, as you do, while having my morning cup of tea, and came across the news on X”.

‘It wasn’t the best way to find out!’ Guy Pearce and Annie Jones on the set of Neighbours.

‘I went into work and everyone was like, ‘What’s going on?’’ Picture: Ten

“It wasn’t the best way to find out. And then I went into work and everyone was like, ‘What’s going on?’”

While it may no longer be the prime- time hit it once was, Neighbours remains an old friend to plenty of viewers.

“I meet a lot of people my age who say that they feel like we’ve grown up together,” says Jones.

“Now they’re in their mid- to late- 50s as well, and they love reliving their youth through the show.”

Ramsay Street has also proved a solid training ground. As well as Pearce, Donovan and Minogue, it served as a launchpad for Delta Goodrem, Margot Robbie and Liam Hemsworth – among others – to kickstart careers that eventually went global.

Kylie Minogue famously got her big break on Neighbours. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

From Neighbours to the Oscars, Margot Robbie was also part of the soap’s cast early in her career. Picture: Getty Images

“It’s a different machine than any other sort of television drama,” Jones explains.

“You have to be committed. There’s a lot of homework. It’s like studying for an exam every week to make so many episodes.”

Or, as 20-year-old Emerald Chan – who joined the cast in 2022 as troubled teenager Sadie Rodwell – puts it, “Neighbours is truly the best acting school you could ask for.”

After three decades wearing Dr Karl Kennedy’s stethoscope, Alan Fletcher admits he is gutted Neighbours is set to cease production in July.

“Hundreds of jobs lost, millions of disappointed fans,” he tells The Binge Guide.

“It seems mad that a program that rates number one or two in the UK almost every week will end.”

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Jason Herbison is one of those diehard fans who grew up entranced by the drama between Ramsay Street families such as the Kennedys and the Robinsons, and now serves as executive producer on the soap.

“Neighbours was my favourite show when I was a teenager and my first job out of high school, so my love goes back a long way,” he tells The Binge Guide.

“Producing five episodes every week is an adrenaline rush. There’s never a dull moment, and I thrive in that kind of environment.”

Despite his disappointment at the series ending, Herbison intends to mark Neighbours’ 40th anniversary in style before giving it another fitting send-off.

Just how he plans to top the 2022 finale, which saw many of the show’s most famous cast members return, remains to be seen.

But Ramsay Street stalwart Jackie Woodburne, who has played Susan Kennedy since 1994, would like to assure fans that the current residents will continue on with their lives once the final credits roll.

“Or,” she adds mischievously, “maybe there will be a massive drama involving aliens, earthquakes and sinkholes …”

Neighbours airs weekdays at 4pm on Network 10 and weeknights at 6.30pm on 10Peach Comedy.

This article originally appeared in The Binge Guide, out via The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (QLD) and Sunday Mail (SA). For more from Stellar and the podcast, Something To Talk About, click here.