Before entering the writing room at Neighbours, had you been involved in other productions?
No! Nothing professional at least. Neighbours was my very first TV job.
What inspired you to pursue writing, especially that of scriptwriting?
I always loved creating stories as a kid. I was dead keen on being a writer from a very young age. I know lots of screenwriters say that it took them a while to realise screenwriting was an actual job, but I grew up in the 90s when the Internet was starting to take hold, so I was really cognizant of all those American TV writers who were engaging with fandoms online. People like Joss Whedon, and J. Michael Straczynski and the like. Then, when I was gorging myself on every DVD boxset produced in my teen years, I loved watching all the making of documentaries. I was captivated by film sets and the whole process. I knew I wanted to make stuff.
How did you come to work on show?
I did a script submission, which was a process the show used to have to find new writers. You’d shadow the plot of an episode, and then go away and write a segment of the episode while the actual writer would go ahead and do the real version. Your work would then be read and assessed. I suppose my first one wasn’t terrible, as I was invited to do another, and then another, and then I started to be asked to do random fill-in days when people in the in-house team were sick, or they needed an extra person. Eventually a full-time job opened up and it was offered to me. I remember calling my then-boss’ assistant immediately to arrange a meeting. I’d never been so excited to quit a job.
No! Nothing professional at least. Neighbours was my very first TV job.
What inspired you to pursue writing, especially that of scriptwriting?
I always loved creating stories as a kid. I was dead keen on being a writer from a very young age. I know lots of screenwriters say that it took them a while to realise screenwriting was an actual job, but I grew up in the 90s when the Internet was starting to take hold, so I was really cognizant of all those American TV writers who were engaging with fandoms online. People like Joss Whedon, and J. Michael Straczynski and the like. Then, when I was gorging myself on every DVD boxset produced in my teen years, I loved watching all the making of documentaries. I was captivated by film sets and the whole process. I knew I wanted to make stuff.
How did you come to work on show?
I did a script submission, which was a process the show used to have to find new writers. You’d shadow the plot of an episode, and then go away and write a segment of the episode while the actual writer would go ahead and do the real version. Your work would then be read and assessed. I suppose my first one wasn’t terrible, as I was invited to do another, and then another, and then I started to be asked to do random fill-in days when people in the in-house team were sick, or they needed an extra person. Eventually a full-time job opened up and it was offered to me. I remember calling my then-boss’ assistant immediately to arrange a meeting. I’d never been so excited to quit a job.
How does a typical writing assignment on Neighbours work for you?
The episodes are allocated in advance, so when you know it’s your week to get an episode, you wait impatiently by your email until the scene breakdown document arrives – and then of course immediately consume the entire thing to find out what’s in your episode. It’s a massive document, about 100 pages, that covers every scene of a whole block of episodes.
It really is a bit of a thrill reading the scene breakdowns, because when you don’t work in-house and you’re just a writer on the show, you literally have NO idea what‘s coming. Sometimes you’d be given these truly beautiful gifts of an episode. Other times you’d be like, ‘ouch, this one is hard, I have my work cut out for me.’
My routine tended to be: I’d read through the episode outline on the Friday night, and then deliberately leave it for the weekend, just so it percolates away in my head. When Monday hits, it’s work time, so I spend the day reading all the characters movements and stories in the episodes preceding mine for the prior few weeks. I make notes on what’s happened to them, where they’ve been, and what they would be thinking about going into my episode. The other thing you’ll do on Monday is have a phone call with the Script Producer, where you have an opportunity to talk through any questions or concerns you have about the episode, or pitch some slightly different takes on the way scenes could work.
After that day of prep, it’s straight into writing. I tend to sit on the couch with a pen and notebook in a bit of a daze, thinking about the beginning, middle and end of the scene and how it could work. Then I just start jotting down lines of dialogue that come to me. Once I’m feeling a rough shape, I’ll write the scene by hand. When I’m happy with that, I’ll type it into the computer. Then it’s just rinse and repeat with the next scene.
Once I’m done, I’ll leave it for a few days and then come back to do an edit. I think about ways dialogue could be cleaner, more focused, or easier for the actor to say. Sometimes you have a new idea and delete an entire scene to do it all again in a completely different way. Then, when you’re happy, you send it in, hope like hell you haven’t screwed it up, and eagerly wait for your next one!
You’ve held a number of different script department roles during your time with the show – Script Coordinator, Script Editor, Storyliner and Script Writer – can you talk us through what each of these roles entails?
The script department is split into two teams – you have the story team and the edit team, then you have a whole bunch of freelance writers on top of that.
The process starts with the story team, so when you’re a storyliner, you spend your days in the writers room plotting out the show. You’re allocated at least one episode a week, and normally from all the forward planning and prep work that the team have done, you’re aware of what stories the episode will cover and where it needs to end. You then work with the rest of the story team to work out, scene by scene, how the episode all develops. Then you go away and write up an outline of the episode in a ten page document called a scene breakdown.
When that’s all signed off, it goes out to the writer allocated to the episode. Most writers are freelance and work from home without ever stepping foot into the studio. There’s a couple of interstate writers who I only ever met once or twice! The writers take the scene breakdown, write the script from that, and send it back in. If you work in-house you might also write episodes, but you tend to not write as many as you’re busy doing your full-time job. When I left the show in early 2021, I switched to being a freelance writer. It meant I had time to go work on some other things while writing Neighbours, so it was a nice change of pace.
Once the script comes in, it’s in the hands of the script editor. The script editors are the ones who shepherd the episode through from its first draft through to its production release. This can and often does involve a lot of rewriting of the episode depending upon how the writers’ first draft fits with the other episodes around it, as well as any changes that have to occur as production begins. And hoo-boy are there always changes at Neighbours.
Both the story team and the edit team have a script coordinator each. I guess you’d say they’re the admin support to each team. They do a lot of proofreading, a lot of liaising with other departments so everyone’s aware what scripts need, and a lot of checking to make sure all the scripts are perfect and that the storyliners and script editors haven’t missed things. They’re a vital role for any television series.
Suffice to say, it’s a real team effort. Lots of people may think the writer of the episode is the real driving force, but the storyliner and script editor are equal parts of the trio that really bring an episode to life.
Who have been your favourite characters to write for?
Uhh… where to begin? I’ve always had a strong draw towards the younger characters, mostly because they’re the ones I connected with when I was watching the show all those years back. I loved getting to write for characters like Piper, Xanthe, Ben, Yashvi, Roxy, Hendrix... But I do also love getting Karl and Susan when they’re in a fun story. And Toadie and Sonya, and now Toadie and Melanie. Oh, and Paul and Terese. And Jane. So... yes, basically everyone.
I also feel a particularly strong connection with Leo. Maybe that’s because my first day in the studio was also Tim Kano’s first day, but equally, Leo’s probably the character that resonates with me most. There’s a ruthlessness to Leo, but unlike Paul, he hates that part of himself, even though he uses the trait constantly. After a life of being the alpha brother to David, much of his adult stories have revolved around him having to grapple with the fact he’s not as strong or good as he’s always thought of himself as. And of course, he loves easily and loves hard, which is always dangerous because he tends to make terrible romantic decisions.
The episodes are allocated in advance, so when you know it’s your week to get an episode, you wait impatiently by your email until the scene breakdown document arrives – and then of course immediately consume the entire thing to find out what’s in your episode. It’s a massive document, about 100 pages, that covers every scene of a whole block of episodes.
It really is a bit of a thrill reading the scene breakdowns, because when you don’t work in-house and you’re just a writer on the show, you literally have NO idea what‘s coming. Sometimes you’d be given these truly beautiful gifts of an episode. Other times you’d be like, ‘ouch, this one is hard, I have my work cut out for me.’
My routine tended to be: I’d read through the episode outline on the Friday night, and then deliberately leave it for the weekend, just so it percolates away in my head. When Monday hits, it’s work time, so I spend the day reading all the characters movements and stories in the episodes preceding mine for the prior few weeks. I make notes on what’s happened to them, where they’ve been, and what they would be thinking about going into my episode. The other thing you’ll do on Monday is have a phone call with the Script Producer, where you have an opportunity to talk through any questions or concerns you have about the episode, or pitch some slightly different takes on the way scenes could work.
After that day of prep, it’s straight into writing. I tend to sit on the couch with a pen and notebook in a bit of a daze, thinking about the beginning, middle and end of the scene and how it could work. Then I just start jotting down lines of dialogue that come to me. Once I’m feeling a rough shape, I’ll write the scene by hand. When I’m happy with that, I’ll type it into the computer. Then it’s just rinse and repeat with the next scene.
Once I’m done, I’ll leave it for a few days and then come back to do an edit. I think about ways dialogue could be cleaner, more focused, or easier for the actor to say. Sometimes you have a new idea and delete an entire scene to do it all again in a completely different way. Then, when you’re happy, you send it in, hope like hell you haven’t screwed it up, and eagerly wait for your next one!
You’ve held a number of different script department roles during your time with the show – Script Coordinator, Script Editor, Storyliner and Script Writer – can you talk us through what each of these roles entails?
The script department is split into two teams – you have the story team and the edit team, then you have a whole bunch of freelance writers on top of that.
The process starts with the story team, so when you’re a storyliner, you spend your days in the writers room plotting out the show. You’re allocated at least one episode a week, and normally from all the forward planning and prep work that the team have done, you’re aware of what stories the episode will cover and where it needs to end. You then work with the rest of the story team to work out, scene by scene, how the episode all develops. Then you go away and write up an outline of the episode in a ten page document called a scene breakdown.
When that’s all signed off, it goes out to the writer allocated to the episode. Most writers are freelance and work from home without ever stepping foot into the studio. There’s a couple of interstate writers who I only ever met once or twice! The writers take the scene breakdown, write the script from that, and send it back in. If you work in-house you might also write episodes, but you tend to not write as many as you’re busy doing your full-time job. When I left the show in early 2021, I switched to being a freelance writer. It meant I had time to go work on some other things while writing Neighbours, so it was a nice change of pace.
Once the script comes in, it’s in the hands of the script editor. The script editors are the ones who shepherd the episode through from its first draft through to its production release. This can and often does involve a lot of rewriting of the episode depending upon how the writers’ first draft fits with the other episodes around it, as well as any changes that have to occur as production begins. And hoo-boy are there always changes at Neighbours.
Both the story team and the edit team have a script coordinator each. I guess you’d say they’re the admin support to each team. They do a lot of proofreading, a lot of liaising with other departments so everyone’s aware what scripts need, and a lot of checking to make sure all the scripts are perfect and that the storyliners and script editors haven’t missed things. They’re a vital role for any television series.
Suffice to say, it’s a real team effort. Lots of people may think the writer of the episode is the real driving force, but the storyliner and script editor are equal parts of the trio that really bring an episode to life.
Who have been your favourite characters to write for?
Uhh… where to begin? I’ve always had a strong draw towards the younger characters, mostly because they’re the ones I connected with when I was watching the show all those years back. I loved getting to write for characters like Piper, Xanthe, Ben, Yashvi, Roxy, Hendrix... But I do also love getting Karl and Susan when they’re in a fun story. And Toadie and Sonya, and now Toadie and Melanie. Oh, and Paul and Terese. And Jane. So... yes, basically everyone.
I also feel a particularly strong connection with Leo. Maybe that’s because my first day in the studio was also Tim Kano’s first day, but equally, Leo’s probably the character that resonates with me most. There’s a ruthlessness to Leo, but unlike Paul, he hates that part of himself, even though he uses the trait constantly. After a life of being the alpha brother to David, much of his adult stories have revolved around him having to grapple with the fact he’s not as strong or good as he’s always thought of himself as. And of course, he loves easily and loves hard, which is always dangerous because he tends to make terrible romantic decisions.
Do you prefer writing Neighbours drama or comedy?
Getting to do the dramatic stuff is always a joy when you have an opportunity to write something that feels true and authentic, but I can’t deny, I have a definite soft spot for Neighbours-style comedy. It’s light and fun, but not too sitcom-like. I’ve had great fun with Roxy, Kyle, Chloe, Karl and Susan over the years.
When the Script Producer is allocating episodes to writers, they tend to give you something that works to your strengths. I would often get episodes that contained a lot of Leo, or the Sharma-Rebecchis. I also wound doing a lot of the Ned/Yashvi relationship, and the Roxy/Kyle one, including getting to write their wedding, which was a joy.
What are some scenes, episodes or storylines that you are particularly proud of?
Gosh, that’s a tough ask. I am a massive fan of long-form storytelling, so the stories I loved most were the really long arcs that played out over the course of a year or more. Things like Hamish’s murder, and how that split Piper and Tyler, then drew in Cassius, then the slow peel back of who Cassius really was and how that swung back around to Piper and Tyler in the end. There was also Toadie and Sonya’s year-long arc from split to reunion. I also loved the Pierce/Dipi affair. We played a long game building these wedges between Shane and Dipi with his addiction, and in exposing the cracks between Pierce and Chloe in what was, let’s be honest, a terrible marriage to begin with.
I’m a foster carer in my outside-Neighbours life, so getting to work on Aaron and David’s foray into fostering and the stories they had with Emmett and Brent was also a treat.
There’s so many specific scenes I loved writing that we’d be here for hours if I listed them all. But some of my favourites were after Fay’s death, when David brings Aaron, Nicolette and Chloe together to play board games; when a self-loathing Hendrix asks Kyle to hit him after he inadvertently hurts Roxy; and this beautiful scene when Roxy drives Kyle home after he accidentally vomits on her at the Police Ball. I’m much more into interesting character moments than anything flashy story-wise.
Ooh, also, I had absolutely nothing to do with it, but I must give a shoutout to the final scene of episode 8051. I’ve watched it no less than ten times over the last couple of years, and I bawl my eyes out every time I see it. It’s the episode before Sonya’s death, and the last scene is very simply her preparing to leave the house, knowing she’s heading off to die. It’s a masterwork of performance from Eve, and of blocking, restraint and pacing from director Declan, as well as the music and the camera and literally everything else. It is the scene that inspires me whenever I think about what Neighbours is capable of even with its limited resources.
You also had the chance to work on a few of the webisode series, the big one being Erinsborough High. How do these compare to working on regular episodes?
Getting to do Erinsborough High was a gift. I’d say it was my highlight from my six years on the show. It ended up being developed in much the same way the main show is written, the difference being that because it was such a small team (me alongside the amazing Libby Butler and Nicolette Minster), I co-plotted and then script edited the entire thing, as well as writing one of the episodes. It was nice to have such a sense of ownership over the whole series, especially when it was so well received.
But boy oh boy, was it a hard thing to plot. It was filmed alongside the normal show and we had a ridiculous number of restrictions to adhere to. Jemma, who plays Harlow, was in the middle of a big story in the main show, so we couldn’t use her as much as we wanted. So we didn’t create scheduling problems with the main show, we also had to keep it to the school set as much as possible. So, the show mainly bounces between a corridor, a classroom, an office and a common room. It’s amazing the show feels like it has as much movement and variation as it does. Also, I think we were allowed to have seven minutes of location scenes in each episode, and five of those minutes had to be the video diaries. The other two minutes could be anywhere on the backlot, but because they had to be shot super quick, they had to have no dialogue, so you’ll notice that all those exterior scenes – like Jeremiah getting bashed, Yashvi seeing Olivia get in Muggleton’s car etc. – are all basically wordless.
It was a creative challenge trying to wrangle all the restrictions into a story that was engaging and absorbing, but I’m super proud of what we did. I loved getting to develop Mackenzie and Richie’s relationship, which the main show picked up and ran with, and also giving Hendrix that genuine and quite beautiful friendship with Jeremiah. Unfortunately, Jeremiah didn’t get used again in the main show, but I did manage to sneak a couple of mentions of him into scripts when I was editing!
Are there any storylines or ideas that were nearly scripted but didn’t make the cut?
Things are always changing on Neighbours. There’s countless stories and ideas that almost made it but ended up going in a different direction. I probably can’t share!
But there’s a number of examples of storylines that WERE scripted and then had to all be rewritten at the last minute – as in, like, writing a whole episode in a day so it could go out to begin production. There were definitely more (I’m still processing all the crazy rewriting that happened when COVID first hit), but I can think of two examples of that happening when I was a script editor. The first was Ben Kirk’s last episode. It was a while ago now but I believe Felix was cast on a US show, and so even though his character was already leaving, he had to leave a couple weeks earlier than originally plotted. This resulted in some manic rewriting of Felix’s last episodes. We had to rethink a whole lot of story and reduce Felix’s shooting load so that he could quickly film some exit scenes before he jetted off to the US. In the end, it meant he was basically written out of his own exit storyline. It surprised me that no one really seemed to pick up on it in the end, but if you go back and watch the last couple weeks of Ben, he’s only ever in three or four scenes an episode, and his exit story is mostly played out around Xanthe, Steph and everyone else Ben was associated with. There’s a lot of talking about Ben without really seeing him!
The other example was the climax of the Paul ex-wives story and Paul and Terese’s wedding, which was originally meant to happen in Vegas, with all the actors involved heading over the US to film it. But there was some kind of last-minute issue and we had to rejig the story to occur in Queensland instead. You’d think this would just involve changing the scene headers from EXT. VEGAS to EXT. QUEENSLAND but it ended up being much more complicated and involved some intensive last minute rewrites. While the Alessi twins (who live in the US) were able to make it to Australia, which was a massive relief, Pippa Black, who also lives in the US, wasn’t, and that was a real shame. There was a wonderful sequence where Paul came face to face with Elle and it was revealed that she was the mastermind behind the ex-wives plot. Luckily, we could salvage some of the material and do a Skype call between the two instead.
One funny thing-- although I did have to resituate the wedding in Queensland, I loved the Elvis impersonator celebrant so much that I asked if we could just keep it, even though it makes a whole lot less sense to have an Elvis celebrant in Australia!
Getting to do the dramatic stuff is always a joy when you have an opportunity to write something that feels true and authentic, but I can’t deny, I have a definite soft spot for Neighbours-style comedy. It’s light and fun, but not too sitcom-like. I’ve had great fun with Roxy, Kyle, Chloe, Karl and Susan over the years.
When the Script Producer is allocating episodes to writers, they tend to give you something that works to your strengths. I would often get episodes that contained a lot of Leo, or the Sharma-Rebecchis. I also wound doing a lot of the Ned/Yashvi relationship, and the Roxy/Kyle one, including getting to write their wedding, which was a joy.
What are some scenes, episodes or storylines that you are particularly proud of?
Gosh, that’s a tough ask. I am a massive fan of long-form storytelling, so the stories I loved most were the really long arcs that played out over the course of a year or more. Things like Hamish’s murder, and how that split Piper and Tyler, then drew in Cassius, then the slow peel back of who Cassius really was and how that swung back around to Piper and Tyler in the end. There was also Toadie and Sonya’s year-long arc from split to reunion. I also loved the Pierce/Dipi affair. We played a long game building these wedges between Shane and Dipi with his addiction, and in exposing the cracks between Pierce and Chloe in what was, let’s be honest, a terrible marriage to begin with.
I’m a foster carer in my outside-Neighbours life, so getting to work on Aaron and David’s foray into fostering and the stories they had with Emmett and Brent was also a treat.
There’s so many specific scenes I loved writing that we’d be here for hours if I listed them all. But some of my favourites were after Fay’s death, when David brings Aaron, Nicolette and Chloe together to play board games; when a self-loathing Hendrix asks Kyle to hit him after he inadvertently hurts Roxy; and this beautiful scene when Roxy drives Kyle home after he accidentally vomits on her at the Police Ball. I’m much more into interesting character moments than anything flashy story-wise.
Ooh, also, I had absolutely nothing to do with it, but I must give a shoutout to the final scene of episode 8051. I’ve watched it no less than ten times over the last couple of years, and I bawl my eyes out every time I see it. It’s the episode before Sonya’s death, and the last scene is very simply her preparing to leave the house, knowing she’s heading off to die. It’s a masterwork of performance from Eve, and of blocking, restraint and pacing from director Declan, as well as the music and the camera and literally everything else. It is the scene that inspires me whenever I think about what Neighbours is capable of even with its limited resources.
You also had the chance to work on a few of the webisode series, the big one being Erinsborough High. How do these compare to working on regular episodes?
Getting to do Erinsborough High was a gift. I’d say it was my highlight from my six years on the show. It ended up being developed in much the same way the main show is written, the difference being that because it was such a small team (me alongside the amazing Libby Butler and Nicolette Minster), I co-plotted and then script edited the entire thing, as well as writing one of the episodes. It was nice to have such a sense of ownership over the whole series, especially when it was so well received.
But boy oh boy, was it a hard thing to plot. It was filmed alongside the normal show and we had a ridiculous number of restrictions to adhere to. Jemma, who plays Harlow, was in the middle of a big story in the main show, so we couldn’t use her as much as we wanted. So we didn’t create scheduling problems with the main show, we also had to keep it to the school set as much as possible. So, the show mainly bounces between a corridor, a classroom, an office and a common room. It’s amazing the show feels like it has as much movement and variation as it does. Also, I think we were allowed to have seven minutes of location scenes in each episode, and five of those minutes had to be the video diaries. The other two minutes could be anywhere on the backlot, but because they had to be shot super quick, they had to have no dialogue, so you’ll notice that all those exterior scenes – like Jeremiah getting bashed, Yashvi seeing Olivia get in Muggleton’s car etc. – are all basically wordless.
It was a creative challenge trying to wrangle all the restrictions into a story that was engaging and absorbing, but I’m super proud of what we did. I loved getting to develop Mackenzie and Richie’s relationship, which the main show picked up and ran with, and also giving Hendrix that genuine and quite beautiful friendship with Jeremiah. Unfortunately, Jeremiah didn’t get used again in the main show, but I did manage to sneak a couple of mentions of him into scripts when I was editing!
Are there any storylines or ideas that were nearly scripted but didn’t make the cut?
Things are always changing on Neighbours. There’s countless stories and ideas that almost made it but ended up going in a different direction. I probably can’t share!
But there’s a number of examples of storylines that WERE scripted and then had to all be rewritten at the last minute – as in, like, writing a whole episode in a day so it could go out to begin production. There were definitely more (I’m still processing all the crazy rewriting that happened when COVID first hit), but I can think of two examples of that happening when I was a script editor. The first was Ben Kirk’s last episode. It was a while ago now but I believe Felix was cast on a US show, and so even though his character was already leaving, he had to leave a couple weeks earlier than originally plotted. This resulted in some manic rewriting of Felix’s last episodes. We had to rethink a whole lot of story and reduce Felix’s shooting load so that he could quickly film some exit scenes before he jetted off to the US. In the end, it meant he was basically written out of his own exit storyline. It surprised me that no one really seemed to pick up on it in the end, but if you go back and watch the last couple weeks of Ben, he’s only ever in three or four scenes an episode, and his exit story is mostly played out around Xanthe, Steph and everyone else Ben was associated with. There’s a lot of talking about Ben without really seeing him!
The other example was the climax of the Paul ex-wives story and Paul and Terese’s wedding, which was originally meant to happen in Vegas, with all the actors involved heading over the US to film it. But there was some kind of last-minute issue and we had to rejig the story to occur in Queensland instead. You’d think this would just involve changing the scene headers from EXT. VEGAS to EXT. QUEENSLAND but it ended up being much more complicated and involved some intensive last minute rewrites. While the Alessi twins (who live in the US) were able to make it to Australia, which was a massive relief, Pippa Black, who also lives in the US, wasn’t, and that was a real shame. There was a wonderful sequence where Paul came face to face with Elle and it was revealed that she was the mastermind behind the ex-wives plot. Luckily, we could salvage some of the material and do a Skype call between the two instead.
One funny thing-- although I did have to resituate the wedding in Queensland, I loved the Elvis impersonator celebrant so much that I asked if we could just keep it, even though it makes a whole lot less sense to have an Elvis celebrant in Australia!
You’ve been with Neighbours since 2016. How has the show changed in that time, particularly when it comes to writing new and interesting stories?
We were always trying to stay relevant and create a show that reflected the lives of people today, but one interesting change when I was there was the deliberate shift to telling less story in an episode. It was always the formula to have three strands – an A, B and C story. Around 2018, there was a shift to only having two stories per episode, and instead making those stories bigger by hooking in more characters. It meant that sometimes, when you’d get to a particular story’s climax, they would often wind up being so big that the entire episode would only cover one story. The whole shift really did change the way we plotted, as it made all the storytelling much more complex, and hopefully more satisfying for the audience.
What are some memorable moments from your time with the show?
So many! E-High, obviously, as mentioned. The 35th anniversary and Endgame. Plotting the weeks leading up to Sonya’s death and its aftermath. It was devastating for all of us as writers to be losing the character. I also remember being really energised the week we were filming the Guy Fawkes Gala. The whole place was abuzz because it was such a massive operation – hundreds of extras, fireworks, the costumes, lots of night shoots. It felt truly special.
I’ll never forget my first episode too! It was a big Toadie/Sonya episode, and I went down to watch some of the filming, where Eve was doing a scene with Alex Tsitsopoulos, who played a man from her past. She is such an extraordinary actor, and watching her bring words that I wrote to life was surreal.
What was it like working on your final episodes?
There were rumblings about the future of the show last year, so when the opportunity came up to work on the 2022 season, I decided to come back, thinking it would be nice to be there for the show’s end – if it did wind up being the end. I wrote my last script a couple weeks ago as the in-house team were finishing, and you know what, even though it only just happened, I can’t remember for the life of me what even happens in it… All I can remember is that things were so manic with the show wrapping up, that I was just glad I found the time to do it!
Were you a fan of the show before coming on as a writer?
I was! It wasn’t a part of my household growing up, but I was so in love with TV and gorging on everything possible that I discovered it on my own during adolescence. That means I’m an early 00’s Neighbours man – my time was very much the latter end of the Scullys, through the Hoylands, Timmins, Kinskis, Napiers and that fun sharehouse with Fraser/Rosie/Pepper and co. I think I dropped off right around the time Margot Robbie began. When there was an opportunity to begin working on the show, I started watching again religiously, starting right around the time of the hotel explosion in 2016… and I’ve watched everything since then obviously!
Do you watch the episodes you write? Do you ever see things you wish you had written differently?
I do, and of course I see things I wish I had’ve done differently – or at least, had been on set to direct the actors to do differently! I feel you always go through a reflection once you see your work produced. What worked, what didn’t, what you need to remember for the future. At the same time, once you hand the script over, you have no control over how the director and actors interpret the words, so you really have to cede the floor to them and let them play with the material as they see fit. Sometimes I’m elated by the way it’s brought to life, sometimes I’m not, and so that involves reflecting on what was missing in the script that failed to nudge everyone in the right direction, or what I didn’t do well that meant the scenes didn’t work as well as they possibly could. You’re always learning.
For a show that nearly didn’t make its first anniversary, it’s amazing to see it almost hit 9000 episodes. What do you think has been the secret to the 37 year success of Neighbours?
It is, as the song says, the perfect blend. Simple as that!
Finally, with the show nearing its final episode, what message do you have for the fans who have stuck by the show all these years?
Thank you so much for watching and being a part of the journey. 37 years. Wow. It’s truly amazing. I’m as equally sad as you are that we won’t have these characters in our lives on a daily basis anymore, but we are all hoping to bring the show to an absolutely perfect end. You as the fans deserve it!
We were always trying to stay relevant and create a show that reflected the lives of people today, but one interesting change when I was there was the deliberate shift to telling less story in an episode. It was always the formula to have three strands – an A, B and C story. Around 2018, there was a shift to only having two stories per episode, and instead making those stories bigger by hooking in more characters. It meant that sometimes, when you’d get to a particular story’s climax, they would often wind up being so big that the entire episode would only cover one story. The whole shift really did change the way we plotted, as it made all the storytelling much more complex, and hopefully more satisfying for the audience.
What are some memorable moments from your time with the show?
So many! E-High, obviously, as mentioned. The 35th anniversary and Endgame. Plotting the weeks leading up to Sonya’s death and its aftermath. It was devastating for all of us as writers to be losing the character. I also remember being really energised the week we were filming the Guy Fawkes Gala. The whole place was abuzz because it was such a massive operation – hundreds of extras, fireworks, the costumes, lots of night shoots. It felt truly special.
I’ll never forget my first episode too! It was a big Toadie/Sonya episode, and I went down to watch some of the filming, where Eve was doing a scene with Alex Tsitsopoulos, who played a man from her past. She is such an extraordinary actor, and watching her bring words that I wrote to life was surreal.
What was it like working on your final episodes?
There were rumblings about the future of the show last year, so when the opportunity came up to work on the 2022 season, I decided to come back, thinking it would be nice to be there for the show’s end – if it did wind up being the end. I wrote my last script a couple weeks ago as the in-house team were finishing, and you know what, even though it only just happened, I can’t remember for the life of me what even happens in it… All I can remember is that things were so manic with the show wrapping up, that I was just glad I found the time to do it!
Were you a fan of the show before coming on as a writer?
I was! It wasn’t a part of my household growing up, but I was so in love with TV and gorging on everything possible that I discovered it on my own during adolescence. That means I’m an early 00’s Neighbours man – my time was very much the latter end of the Scullys, through the Hoylands, Timmins, Kinskis, Napiers and that fun sharehouse with Fraser/Rosie/Pepper and co. I think I dropped off right around the time Margot Robbie began. When there was an opportunity to begin working on the show, I started watching again religiously, starting right around the time of the hotel explosion in 2016… and I’ve watched everything since then obviously!
Do you watch the episodes you write? Do you ever see things you wish you had written differently?
I do, and of course I see things I wish I had’ve done differently – or at least, had been on set to direct the actors to do differently! I feel you always go through a reflection once you see your work produced. What worked, what didn’t, what you need to remember for the future. At the same time, once you hand the script over, you have no control over how the director and actors interpret the words, so you really have to cede the floor to them and let them play with the material as they see fit. Sometimes I’m elated by the way it’s brought to life, sometimes I’m not, and so that involves reflecting on what was missing in the script that failed to nudge everyone in the right direction, or what I didn’t do well that meant the scenes didn’t work as well as they possibly could. You’re always learning.
For a show that nearly didn’t make its first anniversary, it’s amazing to see it almost hit 9000 episodes. What do you think has been the secret to the 37 year success of Neighbours?
It is, as the song says, the perfect blend. Simple as that!
Finally, with the show nearing its final episode, what message do you have for the fans who have stuck by the show all these years?
Thank you so much for watching and being a part of the journey. 37 years. Wow. It’s truly amazing. I’m as equally sad as you are that we won’t have these characters in our lives on a daily basis anymore, but we are all hoping to bring the show to an absolutely perfect end. You as the fans deserve it!
Interviewed March 2022