Home and Away

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Home and Away is an Australian weeknightly half-hour television soap opera produced in Sydney by the Seven Network since January 1988. It is broadcast on the Seven Network and its affiliates in Australia and is exported to many countries, most notably the United Kingdom, where it briefly became the subject of a bidding war between ITV and Five (TV) which Five won. The show has more overall viewers in the larger UK market than it has in its home market, but a higher proportion of viewers in Australia, due to Australia's smaller population base, making it the highest rating locally produced drama. Furthermore, many fans believe the shift in the UK from ITV to Five damaged its popularity. Contract obligations sent it off air in the UK for a year and the smaller audience share Five has means the show now rates significantly lower than it did on ITV (though it is Five's second highest rated show) and its ratings are less than half of BBC1's Neighbours. Five funds more than half of the production costs. It has run since January 1988 and is still in production.

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Synopsis

It features the travails of the inhabitants of a fictional small coastal town in New South Wales called Summer Bay. The soap originally revolved around one family, which was Pippa and Tom Fletcher, and their foster children, who included Frank Morgan, Carly Morris, Steven Matheson, Lynn Davenport, & Sally Fletcher, who was adopted by Tom & Pippa. The family became bigger when Bobby Simpson (daughter of Donald Fisher & Morag Bellingham) came into the picture as well as her adopted younger sister Sophie years later. But it now has many different families: the Hunter family, the Holden family, the Fletcher/Saunders family, the Patterson/Bakers, and Alf Stewart (an original character) and his grandchildren, Ric & Martha.

As of 2004, the program concentrates on the family occupying and running the local caravan park who typically foster several teenagers.

Like Neighbours, Australia's other daily half-hour homegrown soap, it attracts a mainly teenage audience and features a constantly-rotating teenage cast with several older actors who tend to last considerably longer.

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Cast

See main articles:

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Current cast members

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Recurring cast members

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Cast Returns

All but four of the original cast have at some point reprised their role. Those characters who haven't returned are Lynn Davenport, Roo Stewart, Tom Fletcher (who was killed off) and Neville McPhee.

Neville McPhee was killed off-screen. Frank Lloyd, who played Neville refused to come back in 2000 for Sally's wedding. The reason why he refused to return was that his character was written out after the first year as producers felt that they needed to have a younger cast and only found out through local media. Therefore the decision was made for his character to suffer an off-screen heart attack. Sheila Kennely, who played Floss McPhee was also cut after the first year, but agreed to return in 2000 for Sally's doomed wedding to Kieran Fletcher, and has subsequently made further visits in 2002 and 2004.

Ailsa and Bobby made returns, but as they were both killed off, they have returned as visions to other characters, Bobby appeared to Ailsa in her fridge in 1995 and Ailsa appeared to Alf when he suffered a brain tumour in 2003.

Over the past few years, old cast returnees have become more frequent for significant events in the Bay's history, such as Sally's two weddings in 2000 and 2003 respectively, the sesquicentenary in 2002, and Alf's 60th birthday party in the landmark 4000th episode in 2005.

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Future cast members

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Departing cast members

It has been revealed that in the summer of 2006 there will be a major accident resulting in 4 of the much loved characters dying. These 4 are Dan Baker, Kim Hyde, Tasha Hunter & Robbie Hunter. This will air in December 2006 in the UK. This information is to be in a later adition of TV week. It is aslo on this website: summer.bay.tripod.com.

Channel 7 said there will be some dramatic stories in 2006 and many new characters will be introduced. Actors Kate Ritchie and Ray Meagher have been with the show since the first episode, the longest such run in Australian television history. Ritchie was aged nine and playing a character a year younger when the show began filming in late 1987. Her character, Sally, is now a teacher at the local high school and became Acting Principal when Norman Coburn's character Donald Fisher, the previous principal and fellow original cast member, left the show. She is now assistant principal.

Alf has been in several business ventures, many of which were either destroyed by storylines involving natural disasters or losses through bad choices. Some examples include a mini supermarket (early years), the Diner (worked in the old one with Ailsa and also in the new one until recently, that is around 2002-2003) and currently the Surf Club. In late 2005 he also ran for Mayor in an attempt to stop Josh West (Daniel Collopy), but was unsuccessful due to some scam Josh pulled through. Alf was therefore senteneced to nine months in prison, for a crime he didn't even commit. Josh was recently murdered by an as yet unknown assassin (onscreen).

Successful former cast members include Isla Fisher, Naomi Watts, Heath Ledger, Dannii Minogue, Julian McMahon, Simon Baker, Melissa George, Tammin Sursok, Bec Cartwright, Daniel Goddard.

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Production and broadcast schedule

The show is filmed five days a week for 46 weeks of the year. The crew is given a four week holiday at Christmas and a two week break for recuperation mid-year. A normal shooting day is 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM, but can go later if shooting goes over time. There are 8 weeks between shooting and airing the program. The interior shots are filmed at a permanent set for the show in Seven Sydney's Epping studio. The exterior scenes are filmed on location at Palm Beach in Sydney's Northern Beaches region.

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Australian Broadcast

Home and Away is broadcast in Australia on weekdays at 7:00pm. The show airs for 46 weeks each year (except for some years where Seven broadcast the Olympic Games in which only 44 weeks worth of episodes air). Each new season begins on the second Monday in January (an exception to this was the 2006 season where it returned on the third Monday), and the season finale airs on the last Friday in November.

During the broadcast there are three ad-breaks and immediately following the broadcast of each episode is a short promotional trailer for the next episode.

Repeat episodes of the series were broadcast between 1999 and 2002, with a one-year break in 2000. The first 623 episodes (except for Episode 469, which was overlooked when Seven were showing the tennis in September 2001) were shown in this run, before it was taken off in May 2002, and so far has never returned.

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International Broadcasts

As of 2006, in the UK, the show is broadcast weekdays at 6:00 PM, (repeated 12.00 PM weekdays).

In New Zealand, the show is broadcast weekdays at 5:30 PM, (repeated 11.00 AM weekdays and omnibus on Sundays 10:25 AM - New Zealand only).

In Ireland the show is broadcast weekdays at 1:25 pm on RTE ONE and repeated at 6:30 PM on RTÉ Two regulary getting into the top 5 ratings for that week.

Other countries that broadcast Home and Away include: Belgium on Kanaaltwee; Denmark; Estonia; Iceland; Israel; Lithuania; Norway; Poland; South Africa; Sweden; France.


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See also

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External links

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List of Home and Away forums

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