Kylie. Julie Aspinall
up; for some reason, even back then, Kylie dominated the programme whenever she appeared on screen. People related to her girl-next-door persona and that enormous smile, with the result that she was mobbed wherever she went. And despite her earlier ambitions, Kylie really was taken aback by her immediate triumph as an actress. ‘You have to be lucky to go straight from school into a job which makes you famous throughout the world,’ she said at the time. ‘My face fitted the part and everything took off from there. And although there is a bit of me in Charlene, I don’t fight with my folks the way she does.’
If anything, the programme was even more popular in Britain than it was in Australia. Crowds went wild when the stars began to visit London, as the Australian brigade discovered on a visit to Britain’s capital to attend the SOS (Show Organisation for Spastics) awards in 1988. Neighbours was voted the best show by the under-16s, while Kylie picked up the award for favourite female personality. Neighbours cast member Geoff Payne, who played Clive in the soap, gave voice to the sentiments all the cast were feeling when he said: ‘I think we feel more at home here and more welcome than we do in Australia.’
But what exactly was it about this harmless little programme that struck such a chord with people worldwide? Soap operas come and soap operas go, but very few have the lasting power of this innocuous little Australian concoction, let alone its international appeal. Alan Dale, who played Jim Robinson, had one answer: ‘We deal with real issues,’ he argued. ‘If people had to put up with the crap your characters are faced with in British soaps like EastEnders, they’d commit suicide.’
Undoubtedly true, but there were more universal issues at play, as well, not least of which was familiarity. ‘One of the great appeals of soap operas is that they explore common human situations,’ observed social psychologist Dr Maryon Tysoe at the time. ‘I’m not talking about Dallas and Dynasty, which shifted into fantasy. Soaps such as Coronation Street, EastEnders and Neighbours examine possible ways out of familiar situations and methods of dealing with things. Everyone is an amateur psychologist and likes to imagine how they would feel in such circumstances. If you watch something for long enough, you get to know a character’s history and become intrigued about what is going to happen.’
Elaine Smith, the Scottish-born actress who played Daphne, had other ideas about why the show had proved so successful, not least of which was the fact that it portrayed a perfection rarely to be found in real life. ‘The wonderful thing about Neighbours is that it’s always sunny,’ she argued. ‘When people open their fridges they are always full. And people like the fact that you can have an accountant, a mechanic and an executive living in the same street.’
Albert Moran, lecturer in media studies at Griffith University, Brisbane, had yet another theory about the Neighbours phenomenon. ‘The show’s popularity,’ he said, ‘stems from the fact that it allows us to take a legitimised interest in gossip and in our neighbours. Because it is regular, it becomes as satisfying as the news.’
But perhaps the people who came closest to the truth – in their analysis of soaps generally, rather than Neighbours specifically – are sociologists Laurie Taylor and Bob Mullan, who identify in their book Uninvited Guests something they call the echo effect, meaning that soaps mirror the viewers’ own experiences. ‘Episodes recall biographical incidents, elicit unspoken fears, desires and memories or allow a more public expression of family emotion than might normally be possible,’ argued Taylor. ‘A sympathy bond is created with the audience, which is often a family sitting in a room watched by another family sitting in a room. And close-up shots are used far more often making the heads of characters appear life-size.’
Mark Callan, producer and director of Neighbours in the early days, adds his own thoughts. ‘We try to keep everything as simple as possible and direct it at the ordinary things that occur in every household and in every neighbourhood,’ he said in an interview in 1988. ‘We are often tempted to use a sensational story but we pull back and say, “That’s not likely to happen.”We do best when we portray the mundane in an entertaining way.’ And the programme’s values, he added, are a novelty outside Australia, given that the show contains no smoking, no swearing and only a smidgen of sex. ‘It must therefore have some appeal to British audiences, because they are different,’ he argued. ‘They have a certain novelty.’ The show was certainly a contrast to EastEnders, which had started in 1986: if anything, Neighbours most resembled Coronation Street, another soap that – at the time, anyway – displayed a genius for portraying the mundane in an enter-taining way.
With her new-found success, Kylie’s life changed enormously. Carol took over the day-to-day running of her life, such as choosing her clothes and looking after her newly famous daughter, but Kylie was now on a treadmill and there was no turning back. ‘There’s so much pressure on me now to work, work, work,’ she confessed in 1988. ‘I just can’t say no. Sometimes it gets to me. I give so much time and energy to everyone else there’s nothing left for me. Every morning I’m woken at 5.30 a.m. and my mum drags me into a cold shower. Then she makes up my food for the day – different bags for breakfast, lunch and dinner. At home my bedroom’s a real mess with clothes everywhere – but I know Mum will take care of it. I have a real weakness for clothes and I like her to help me choose them. Mum’s really my best friend.’ And what of her other friends? ‘I’m too tired to chat and I never have time to go out anywhere with them,’ admitted the exhausted star.
Finally, the strain took its toll. At the 1988 Logies, Kylie won an unprecedented four awards in one night, including Gold Logie for the Most Popular Television Personality. Jason, meanwhile, was named Most Popular Actor, while Neighbours itself won the Most Popular Drama Series category. Instead of celebrating with the others, Kylie rushed back to her hotel room, where she spent the night sobbing hysterically.
By the age of just 20, Kylie had earned enough to buy herself a £250,000 house in Melbourne, but the poor girl was having a long dark night of the soul, not least because her singing career was also beginning to bloom. ‘I work a 12-hour day on Neighbours starting at 6.30 a.m. every morning,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m in the studio until 7.15 p.m. and even when you are not in front of the cameras you have to sit waiting in the dark and smoky dressing room. I really thought I was going to fade away at one point – I lost a stone in five weeks and when I told my doctor how hard I was working, he was horrified. Apart from the hours I was working with Neighbours, I had been putting in a lot of work to get my pop career started. I was rushing around so much I didn’t have time to eat. In the end I couldn’t face sitting down for a proper meal and I was so scared I’d get anorexic. I do envy other people my age. Most 20-year-olds don’t have a care in the world. I wonder if it’s all worth it.’
Others certainly thought it was: no less a personage than the late Diana, Princess of Wales became a fan. The princess and the showgirl met at a bicentennial concert in Sydney in the late 1980s and Kylie recalls, ‘I was desperate to ask Princess Diana if she watched the series, but I didn’t dare. I needn’t have worried, though – she told me straight away that she loved it. Prince Charles overheard our conversation and said that it sounded so good, he must watch it too!’
There were consolations, though: romance was blossoming behind the scenes as well as on the screen. Jason Donovan had become more than just a friend – although the pair fiercely denied a relationship for years – and Kylie was forced to confess the truth to David. ‘I was devastated, shattered,’ he said some years after the split. ‘We’d never really talked about marriage but I had just always assumed that we would be together forever. I’ve never totally got over her,’ he confessed. ‘I’ve never let myself get so involved again. To this day, despite having met him quite often, I have never been able to bring myself to talk to Jason. I have nothing to say to the man – and never will have. But I’m still very fond of Kylie. She’s a lovely girl. She will always have a special place in my heart.’
To the rest of the world, Kylie was being extremely coy where Jason was concerned. ‘We work together so much, imagine how awful it would be if we didn’t like each other,’ she said brightly. ‘I have no plans to settle down just yet. I have bought a small place in Melbourne which