Neighbours: The Celebration Tour review – the perfect blend of poignancy and Toadfish jokes - The Guardian
Neighbours being cancelled, Kylie and Jason Donovan reprising their roles and the soap creating international headlines for its celebratory finale … before being revived by a streaming service just over three months later is, no question, peak Neighbours.
The same can also be said for the tour. A one-off Live in Conversation special had been planned, featuring cast members talking about and sharing their favourite moments, to mark the Australian soap's 35th anniversary in 2020. Those plans were then shelved because of Covid. Then last year, when the show was cancelled after Channel 5 decided to not renew its contract, Neighbours announced The Farewell Tour. Now, with the soap being picked up by Amazon's Freevee streaming service, it has changed its name once again to Neighbours: The Celebration Tour.
The excitement in the room beforehand was palpable, the gift shop thronged with fans buying plastic Ramsay Street replica signs. The show itself, mostly consisting of a Q&A, leaned heavily into discussing the more surreal elements of the daytime soap that made it such a firm favourite. "Life on Neighbours for Toadie was about being involved in a bouncy castle accident, being run over, shot …" said the host, Leah Boleto, to the actor who portrayed him, Ryan Moloney, as a montage of those accidents played silently on a screen behind them.
"What?! It could happen!" declared Jackie Woodburne (Susan Kennedy) when questioned about a storyline that involved her slipping on milk, banging her head and thinking she was a teenager. She recounted the time her character had to perform an emergency tracheostomy on Lou after he started choking in the aftermath of a tornado, aided only by a butter knife, a straw and instructions down the phone from her on-screen partner, Dr Karl Kennedy (Alan Fletcher). In case you are wondering, Lou made a full recovery. "All in a day's work," said Fletcher.
The audience cheered when shown a clip of Susan slapping Karl after he had admitted to an affair. April Rose Pengilly (Chloe Brennan) talked about how many Simpsons references she managed to slip into her dialogue. And Annie Jones (Plain Jane Superbrain) was introduced with a clip from a storyline where her son had revealed that he was an escort, followed by a portrait of Mrs Mangal falling off the wall and crashing to the ground.
This surrealism continued into the second half. It began with a montage of Neighbours explosions from over the years. Now with the cast sitting together, rather than being interviewed separately, there were lighthearted discussions on topics such as who had the most weddings, with Toadie's seven (one notably ending with him accidentally driving off a cliff into the sea) beaten by Paul Robinson's nine; the character, played by Stefan Dennis, has had six wives. It would have been nice if the cast had all sat together from the start of the show.
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The event was strongest when the cast spoke frankly about the shock of the soap's cancellation, the pain they felt saying goodbye to the crew (some of whom left weeks before the final episode even aired), followed by their surprise that it had been saved. Neighbours was reincarnated by Amazon, but that was very much due to the fans, many of whom had been campaigning online for months and many of whom must have been in that audience. While the soap was often silly and surreal, it also contained a natural warmth and inclusiveness that many shows lack. The cast relished the opportunity to thank fans for their support, with several revealing that they had cried during the meet and greets that had taken place that day. It felt like a rare and genuine opportunity to say thank you.
It also ended with a rather touching moment. Directly before goading the entire audience into singing the soap's theme tune, the cast got up from their seats and stood in a row at the front. Woodburne then reprised Susan's narration from the soap's final scene shown last July, when her character walked around Erinsborough making observations on her fellow neighbours. Only this time she shared the lines with her co-stars and added in several extra words. "Together we are … and we will continue to be … the perfect blend," she said.
Neighbours: The Celebration Tour is at venues across the UK until 23 March, with a performance in Australia on 16 April
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