PLAY TELEVISION A LIFETIME SPENT IN SUMMER BAY

things are better for staying the same. In the world of soap operas, core human dramas – hatches, matches and dispatches – play out over and over again.

The familiar faces who’ve graced our screens for the past 30 years draw us straight back into the fictional world of Summer Bay.

As one of Home and Away’s longserving cast members, Emily Symons is in good company with founding member Alf “flaming heck” Stewart, played by Ray Meagher.

“None of us can believe it’s 30 years,” she says. “Especially not Ray. From day one he’s been there, and he’s amazing. What an achievement.

Along with Irene ( Lynne McGranger), Sally ( Kate Ritchie), Leah ( Ada Nicodemou) and Donald ( Norman Coburn) one of Summer Bay’s longest- serving characters is Marilyn Chambers, a bubbly beautician with impossibly high hair and standards in a tiny beachside town. Symons nabbed the gig a year after the show started.

After a two- hour stint in hair and make- up most days, Symons says she doesn’t truly feel in character until she dons a pair of towering stilettos.

“She wears them everywhere, even on the sand,” she says. “And Marilyn is a beautician and hairdresser, so the hair and makeup are always done, which is the bane of my life.”

Symons is groomed within an inch of her life onset, but says her standards drop considerably when she leaves.

“God no. I’m a feral, exhausted mother,” she says. “That is not what I look like on the weekends, let me tell you.”

Home and Away screens on Seven at 7pm Monday to Thursday.