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13 years after her 'death', Madeleine West's Dee Bliss returns to Neighbours

Craig Mathieson
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The best soap opera moments are both shocking in their suddenness and ludicrously over the top – you can't believe what just happened, but you want to watch it again. Neighbours hit that sweet, memorable spot in 2003 when the traditional white wedding of girl-next-door Dee Bliss (Madeleine West) and top bloke Jarrod "Toadfish" Rebecchi (Ryan Moloney) culminated in them driving off a cliff on their way to the honeymoon.

Screened now, the scene is daftly hilarious. The kiss between the newlyweds that distracts Toadfish from his driving is lingeringly long, while the only indication during the actual stunt that Dee is meant to be in the passenger seat is a blonde wig fluttering out an open window as the car bellyflops into the water. You can laugh, but it worked: Neighbours fans remember the moment all too well.

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"When the 30th anniversary of the show came around they did some polls and I discovered that Dee's death was the second most memorable storyline behind Scott and Charlene's wedding," explains West. "That storyline has been passed down from generation to generation like an urban myth: the blonde bride who was driven off a cliff by her husband."

For the last 13 years Neighbours fans have been coming up to West to reminisce about Dee, lament her screen husband's loss, and point out that since Dee's body was never recovered from the surprisingly shallow water that there was always the chance she could reappear one day. This week on Neighbours, the devotees will get their wish: Madeleine West will return as Dee Bliss.

"I did it for the fans," says West. "People are really enthusiastic to see Dee come back. I'm surprised that she's remembered so fondly and by so many people of all ages."

Neighbours has form when it comes to unlikely returns. Ian Smith's Harold fell from rocks in 1991 and was swept away – again no body was recovered – only for the character to return to fictional Ramsay Street in 1996 with a storyline that involved amnesia and rescue by a fishing trawler. West can't detail her plotline, but if nothing else, she sounds amused by it.

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"The challenge was to make an unbelievable storyline believable, but more often than not truth is stranger than fiction," she says. "We've brought a 'you wouldn't read about it moment' to life."

Now a 37-year-old mother of six married to restaurateur Shannon Bennett, West had been on Neighbours for four years when she left the show. She was worried that Dee was too familiar a role and that her performance was becoming lazy, which was anathema to someone who identified as a character actor.

"I had to move on and challenge myself because I wasn't doing the production and myself any favours by staying," says West. "I had to go out and frighten myself again, with a role that scared me.

"Not meaning to sound immodest, but I turned down more work than accepted," she adds. "I shied away from roles that perpetuated the stereotype of Dee as the blonde sweetheart from next door. I pursued roles that challenged me and looked at the darker side of life, such as Satisfaction and Underbelly."

As well as Satisfaction, which was set in the sex industry, and true crime adaptations of Underbelly, West has had stints on Rescue Special Ops, House Husbands and, last year, The Wrong Girl, where she played a network television morning show host saddled with Craig McLachlan's pompous co-presenter. The breadth and quality of Australian TV productions, West believes, is gradually improving, as are the roles for women.

"It's been slow, even glacial, progress, but it is happening," she says. "We've seen more and more female characters on the screen with a broad and diverse background. Women on Australian screens aren't always the wife, the mother, or the sidekick. They can take charge and be from various ages, various backgrounds, and various sexual orientations."

"The Wrong Girl is quirky to the nth degree, but is it a comedy? Is it a drama? Is it an autobiographical look at the television industry?" she asks. "It's idiosyncratic and that's what I love about it – it hasn't been seen on Australian television before and there's no set formula for where it can go."

West's return to Neighbours has a limited time span, but even on the first day back she felt a sense of deja vu. Just filling up with petrol at the service station opposite the Nunawading production facility got her reminiscing, and then there were familiar faces among the cast and crew, including Ryan Moloney, who's now in his third decade with the series.

"It was a challenge to go back to playing someone who was so sweet and nice and gentle, but as the storyline progresses that will change," says West. "What we've managed to manufacture on Neighbours is much more convoluted and complicated than any of the darker characters I've played."

WHAT Neighbours

WHEN Eleven, Monday-Friday, 6.30pm