14 Soap milestone: Neighbours clocks up a special birthday.
Australian soap Neighbours is celebrating 35 years on air. Stefan Dennis, one of the soap’s longest-serving actors, talks about fame in the 1980s and why the show is still popular after more than three decades. Sarah Nealon reports.
Stefan Dennis (left) is a soap star who is on a par with Shortland Street’s Michael Galvin (Chris Warner) and Coronation Street’s William Roache (Ken Barlow). The 61 year old actor, who plays Neighbours’ villain Paul Robinson, is one of the soap’s longest-serving characters. He was there when the Australian show began in 1985 and is still there today. Like Galvin, at one point he quit the soap, in which he rose to fame, to pursue other acting work.
However, Dennis came back to Neighbours 16 years ago and is still going strong.
Neighbours is set in Melbourne’s fictional Ramsay Street.
This week the show is celebrating 35 years on screen with special episodes. Eleven former characters are returning and there will be weddings as well as deaths.
The long-running soap was arguably at the peak of its fame in the 80s.
When two of its most popular characters Charlene Mitchell (Kylie Minogue) and Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan) tied the knot in 1987, their nuptials were watched by
two million viewers in Australia.
But that paled in comparison with the 20 million Brits who tuned in to see the televised wedding.
Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan had a real-life romance and their pop single Especially For You went to number one in the UK charts.
Stefan Dennis also dabbled in pop music and his late 80s single Don’t It Make You Feel Good reached number 16 in the UK pop charts.
He recalls visiting Britain in the 80s and avoiding eager press photographers lined up at Heathrow airport.
“I remember one time in 1989 I was going over to promote my second single...,” he says.
“But also Neighbours was absolutely massive. And my English agent told me, ‘Stef, I’ve been tipped off. The paparazzi are waiting at the airport for when you arrive’.
“And I actually got off the plane in disguise and I managed to walk straight past them.
“It wasn’t a very elaborate disguise. It was just a pair of glasses. I hadn’t shaven for four or five days and (was wearing) an old trackie suit. They were probably expecting someone clean shaved looking like Stefan Dennis/Paul Robinson in a nice outfit.
“I trundled straight past them and they were all looking past me waiting for me to come out.” There were other instances which reminded Dennis of his popularity. “I remember one time doing a gig down in Portsmouth and I literally had my shirt ripped off me – literally torn off in pieces. Walking from the stage to hospitality and I was surrounded by six big burly guys. “People were just reaching through the gate and just tearing at my shirt. I was literally shirtless by the time I got to the hospitality suite. “Another time I nearly broke my wrist trying to run away from a mob over in Ireland. It’s scary and exciting at the same time. Thank goodness it’s all died down.” Neighbours began in Australia in 1985, but it was cancelled less than a year later. With no job but keen for a holiday, Robinson headed to Europe with his then wife, hoping to spend six months travelling. “My agent managed to get hold of me over in Europe and said, ‘Neighbours want you back’. I said, ‘What do you mean? I thought it’d been axed.’ She said, ‘No it’s been picked up by Channel 10 and they want you back’.” Months later, on another TV
network in 1986, the show was back on screen.
As well as proving popular in the UK, the soap has also been well received in New Zealand.
Over the years a selection of Kiwi actors have appeared on the show including Alan Dale (The Young Doctors, The O.C., Dynasty) who played
Dennis’ father Paul Robinson.
“You’re talking about one of my best mates,” says Dennis. “I love Alan dearly. He lives in America but we still see each other and talk to each other – not as often as we’d probably like to.”
In 1992, Dennis quit Neighbours and moved to the UK. For the next 12 years he had
regular work in the film and television industry – on screen as well as behind the scenes.
He returned to Neighbours in 2004 where he has been ever since.
“I was invited back for a two-week guestie for the 20th anniversary,” says Dennis.
“They didn’t call me back from the UK. A lot of people thought I came back from the UK to do Neighbours. But I came back to resettle here.
“We’d just had our first born and I didn’t want to raise him in London. I wanted to raise him in Australia.
“We were going to build a house and do all of this and, in the meantime, the opportunity to do a guestie came up and two weeks turned into a month and I think I’ve just clicked over 16 years.”
When asked what he attributes Neighbours’ longevity to he says, “I can only put it down to mainly one thing. I can sum it up in one word and that’s ‘entertainment’.
“I think what Neighbours has always tried to do is always try to be entertaining.
“And rather than just be a hard-hitting serious drama the whole time – certainly we have a lot of that – it is peppered with lightheartedness.
“I don’t necessarily think comedy. I just mean lightness – just to give the audience relief. So they’re not sort of drained.
“At the end of the half hour, they go, ‘Oh that was a nice little journey’.”