Even Queen Mum loved Neighbours ..I just can’t believe it’s facing axe after 37yrs Royal quizzed me at show,says star
Jason took me to dinner at a local cheap eats place after filming. We were walking from Pin Oak Court to the costume and wardrobe bus when some local kids spotted them and went berserk asking for autographs. Kylie turned to me and said: ‘Brace yourself, Craigy, they’re going to love you and you’re going to be dealing with this in a few weeks’.”
Sure enough, six weeks later, he was mobbed by fans on his way to buy guitar strings in Melbourne.
“I remember telling some of the girls to stop crying,” he laughs. “I never did get those strings. We’d get faxes from our publicity department to say
Neighbours had hit the 15 million viewers mark in Britain. To think we’d grown up on a diet of everything from Dad’s Army to Corrie and suddenly our little show was out-rating some of those fabulous British ones was unbelievable.
“I went from unblocking the sinks and toilets and grease traps at a Kentucky Fried Chicken, where I’d shower and jump in my little station wagon to perform gigs with my guitar, to being on set with Kylie.
“In six weeks I’d gone from an unblocker of dunnies to being on the cover of magazines. It was insane.”
One fan flooded Craig with gifts but got the hump when he wrote to her mum politely saying there was no need to splash out on him.
After a few months she sent Craig a putrid birthday cake – then threw an egg at a public appearance.
In 1990 he started playing teacher Grant
Mitchell on
Home And Away
– working alongside Kylie’s sister
Dannii. “But I always preferred
Neighbours,” he chuckles, singing the theme tune down the phone.
Craig went on to star in multiple hit shows both in the UK and Australia, as well as performing in the West End. His love life has seen some ups and downs. At 21 he wed high school sweetheart Karen Williams, but the marriage didn’t last.
He was also briefly married to fellow Neighbours actress Rachel Friend.
He later had a relationship with English actress Charlotte Avery and they had a son Jacob, before they too split up. He has been with current partner
Vanessa since 2009. She stood by Craig when he was accused three years ago of sexual assault by former cast members on Rocky Horror Show tour.
He was found not guilty. But it was a tumultuous time.
Craig says: “What’s difficult is when you are painted as a monster and you’re just not. That has a profound effect on your mental health.”
But bring him back to Neighbours, and the joy in his voice quickly returns. Could another network save it?
He says: “Part of me thinks leave it while it occupies such a special place in the hearts of so many people.
“But if someone wants to get on board and reinvent it with a very buff 50-something Craig back in dungarees, then why not?”