10 things you never knew about Neighbours
The final episode ever of beloved Australian soap opera Neighbours airs on Friday night with a special double bill.
The long-running drama has reached the end of the road after 37 years of marriages, divorces, tragedies and dog dreams.
As we wave goodbye to our friends on Ramsay Street, here are 10 Neighbours facts you may not have known (even if you used to watch the show twice a day).
1. All the Hemsworth brothers - Chris, Liam and Luke - have appeared in the show. Liam played the roles of Josh Taylor for 10 months in 2007, Luke was cast as Nathan Tyson in 2002, and Chris made a brief cameo as Jamie Kane for one episode.2. Neighbours is the longest-running drama on Australian TV. The first episode was aired in 1985 in Australia, and the finale on 28 July 2022. It was the seventh longest-running serial drama still on the air in the world as of its final episode.
3. Neighbours creator, Australian TV executive Reg Watson, got the idea for the show from his time working on British soap Crossroads and watching Coronation Street.
4. The wedding of Scott Robinson and Charlene Mitchell (played by Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue) was watched by 19.6 million people in the UK. In its native Australia, just two million viewers tuned in.
5. Neighbours arrived in the UK in 1986 and became hugely popular thanks to daughter of former BBC controller, Michael Grade, now Lord Grade, getting into trouble. The soap was originally scheduled the show for two slots on BBC1: 9.25am, after breakfast TV, and 1.35pm, after the lunchtime news. The soap moved after his daughter was given a ticking off for watching it instead of being in the playground. The new 5.35pm slot gave the soap a new lease of life.
6. Helen Daniels (played by Anne Haddy) is the only original character played continuously by the same actor until her own death in 1997. But she is only the second longest-serving original character; her grandson, Paul Robinson (Stefan Dennis) has been in the show since 1985 but took a near 10-year break in 1993. 7. Ramsay Street is a real street in Melbourne (real name, Pin Oak Court) and the residents are paid for the right to film the outsides of their properties.
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8. In 2018, Aaron Brennan (Matt Wilson) and David Tanaka (Takaya Honda) became the first same-sex couple to wed in an Australian television drama following the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Australia.
9. Since 1985, there have been eight versions of the theme tune which has been voted the world's most recognised television theme song. The lyrics were quoted by the late Labour leader John Smith, then shadow chancellor, in a House of Commons during a debate on government economic policy.10. The rivalry between Australia's two biggest cities, Melbourne and Sydney, is such that it was not until 1994 - nearly a decade after it first aired - before it was mentioned Erinsborough was a (fictional) suburb of Melbourne. The show did film scenes in Sydney's Darling Harbour in 2010 and on board a cruise ship - only the third time that the show has filmed scenes outside of the state of Victoria.