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Home and Away: How nasty NIMBYs and Neighbours made Australia's last great soap

It's one of Seven's most successful shows – but Home and Away wouldn't be here without another soap's early failure and a holiday encounter with angry locals.

Michael Lallo

​The setting couldn't be more peaceful. A weekend shack under a soft blue dusk, surrounded by endless rust-coloured earth. We're at a Ooraminna Station, 30 kilometres outside Alice Springs. But the mood is tense. Detective Sergeant Amy Peters (Lisa Flanagan) is marching Heath Braxton (Dan Ewing) to a cop car. His romantic escape with Bianca Scott (Lisa Gormley) has taken a disastrous turn. 

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Three decades ago, no one could have predicted this: using Home and Away's loyal fan base to grow Foxtel's viewership. (Home and Away: Revenge launches as an on-demand special on December 19.)

This was a series that struggled to get made, then almost got cancelled in its infancy. Now, it is Australia's last great soap. (These days, networks fill their local drama quota with miniseries, biopics, and series of six to 12 episodes.) In 2016, Home and Away averaged 1.34 million viewers nationally, while Neighbours drew 331,000. It is the longest-running drama on a main channel, and is shown in 65 countries.

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In many ways, its unpretentious appeal became Seven's blueprint for success, allowing the network to finally beat Nine. And it all started with a very strange formula: Seven's decision to axe Neighbours, combined with some nasty NIMBYs (more on those later).

Back at Ooraminna, a drone takes off to film police cars screaming down a dirt road. Earlier, Ewing and Gormley filmed at Ormiston Gorge, a spectacular mountain-ringed water hole. This is a world away from the over-lit, flimsy-walled soaps of the 1970s.

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"I don't want to put down our competitor that shoots in Melbourne," Ewing says, "but look at us out here. The team do such a good job of keeping the show relevant and fresh. Dramas come and go, but Home and Away is the little engine that could."

Revenge was intended for Presto, the now-defunct streaming service. Its customers have been directed to Foxtel, which can expect big audiences. (Presto's first Home and Away special, An Eye for an Eye, broke one-day streaming records last year. A third feature, All or Nothing, will be released on January 26.)

We arrive on set mid-morning, but the cast have been filming since dawn. Today's scenes are tough: fistfights, rescue attempts, hostile interrogations. All under the Northern Territory sun.

Every week, Home and Away shoots the equivalent of a feature film's worth of footage. This year, it filled 44 weeks. "Those hours are something I'm grateful I went through, because everything else seems like a walk in the park," Ewing says. He and Gormley left Summer Bay in 2014, but have returned for the specials and a recent stint on the main show.

"It's a well-oiled machine," Gormley adds, noting this leaves little room for big egos. "The crew works harder than you'll ever work, full stop. No matter how crappy or tired you're feeling, you just shut up and do your bit."

After filming the dramatic finale, Flanagan catches her breath. On the strength of her acclaimed work in Redfern Now and The Gods of Wheat Street, producers offered her a role – no audition necessary. "I've been wanting to work on Home and Away for a long time," Flanagan says. "For an Indigenous actor to get into mainstream television is a big deal, and I'm proud to have done it." 

Over lunch, Flanagan and I recall whole plotlines from the early '90s, many involving Alf Stewart (Ray Meagher, the only original cast member) and Irene Roberts (played by Lynne McGranger for 24 years). Bobby Fisher's (Nicolle Dickson) 1993 death in a boating accident, she says, "stuck with me". 

Home and Away doesn't rate as highly as it used to, but it can still crack the top 10 on weeknights. And its co-dependent relationship with TV Week magazine – which puts its stars on the cover every week – benefits both.

Ewing recalls viewers sending his infant son gifts in 2014, when his family was in Ireland. It was a bounty too large to bring home, so he donated the teddies and baby clothes to charities. And Gormley remembers the letters she received when Bianca lost her baby to SIDS; women sharing their own heartbreaking experiences. "We cover these stories quickly, but they do give people hope because they see themselves on screen," she says.

Decades ago, Seven gave a pile of photos to a focus group, asking them to select those that best reflected each network. Nine was assigned a BMW and a Rolex – while Seven got a Hills Hoist and a roast chook. Mortified, they buried the research and tried to outshine Nine in the glamour stakes. Yet Seven remained stuck in second place.

Then, an epiphany: why not embrace their Aussie heartland image? The best example was Adam Boland's rejuvenated Sunrise. He encouraged "Mel and Kochie" to banter, while scribbling viewer questions on an actual whiteboard. Nine's Today was left looking stiff and uptight by comparison.

But Seven already had a perfectly good "roast chook" show, five nights a week. And it's no accident Home and Away's first episode was re-written by Bevan Lee, who returned to the series in later years. Lee also created or wrote other Seven "heartland" hits: Sons and Daughters, All Saints, Always Greener, Packed to the Rafters, Winners and Losers and A Place to Call Home (now on Foxtel).

No network likes a flop. In retrospect, however, Seven must be thrilled Neighbours fizzled upon its 1985 debut. (Though it rated well in its native Melbourne.) So the network axed it – then burned down the sets, to thwart any rival considering a re-launch. Undaunted, Ten re-built Ramsay Street's interiors and made the show a hit. In despair, Seven began searching for another weeknight soap.

Inspiration struck then-drama chief, Alan Bateman, during a family holiday. Stopping for ice cream in the small NSW town of Kangaroo Point, Bateman began chatting with locals. Many were livid over the construction of a foster home, lest its needy children befoul their riverside hideaway.

"I saw then the outline for a serial," the late Bateman recalled in the book Home and Away: Behind the Scenes. "Nobody wanted them to move in ... and I began to wonder how streetwise city kids would adapt to the new lifestyle."

Debuting as a telemovie in January 1988, Home and Away drew a healthy audience. But ratings soon dropped – not helped by different timeslots in different states – and it was "touch and go", writes TV historian Andrew Mercado in Super Aussie Soaps. Had Seven swung the axe, it would have killed one of its most important shows of the past three decades.

"I watched as a young fella in New Zealand for the beautiful beaches and beautiful women," says George Mason, fresh from filming an argument between his character Ash, Heath, and Kyle (Nate Cooper). "But [you keep watching] because of the good writing. It's got a bit of action, a bit of everything." 

A decade ago, Neighbours alienated some viewers, admitting to an excess of "bombs, guns and stalkers". This forced a return to more family-focused drama. Cliffhanger calamities (floods, earthquakes, plane crashes) always seemed a better fit for Home and Away, though it maintains a careful balance with everyday problems.

As many have pointed out, its cast is overdue for greater ethnic and sexual diversity. "I'd move interstate for them if they wanted me to," Flanagan says, confirming she'd love a permanent role. "I think Home and Away has a lot of good things yet to come."

Home and Away: Five facts

  • The show was meant to be called Refuge, until someone realised this was terrible name for a family soap.
  • Carol Willesee, wife of current affairs journalist Mike Willesee, was slated to play foster mum Pippa Fletcher – but Seven gave the role to Vanessa Downing just before filming began. Debra Lawrance played Pippa from 1990. 
  • Lawrance met her now-husband, Dennis Coard, when he was cast as Pippa's second husband, Michael. They married in 1992.
  • The show has won 46 Logies, more than any other program.
  • Famous Summer Bay alumni include: Chris Hemsworth, Guy Pearce, Isla Fisher, Ryan Kwanten, Heath Ledger, Dannii Minogue, Melissa George, Julian McMahon, Simon Baker and Naomi Watts.
    SOURCE: Super Aussie Soaps by Andrew Mercado, Fairfax Media.

Revenge launches December 19, and All or Nothing launches January 26, on Foxtel on Demand.
Home and Away returns to Channel Seven on January 30.

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