The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 43

13 Thursday 9 September 2000 new trips to dag zone please Green Guide jjj-l GUARANTGEDi auoaCTnufuio huotu335g snttiuTcSwrrcH WITH AUTO SWITCH MACMMSSOkjIN MSWIUCH CONNECT AlgWWCH CONNECTION BaaNBra I5uSbco5t HouSmfm roomer fax mtoo 1(1 arm AmAacwarHM with auto switch f.j untarna jKlS? aotwutct HuwauTS-aoi fajmothajcttcSmo FAXwrucwcwMG hachmebum winy iiajtii MppipiinpV mnmammmmamgr' teld tori ftsfiMS Canon Eggg Panasonic AMAomc 1 KX-W1QM cm KX-W1030-MMCJWI Ifc -fa WITH FLOPPY OcSKOmvE AND -aVaT gafflN-" MS-OOS CONVERTER FftOM I As tor issues Ramsay Street Is doing its best Subtlety is definitely making Inroads re Anne Haddy's drinking problem. Lots of discreet white wine bottles perched near her lovely on canvases, but so far no out and out claims a place in the televsion cosmos for the inevitability of the average. Soap actors tend to get overlooked in televsion criticism, but the Neighbours cast has a few actors: Terence Donovan, Caroline Gilmer, Tom Oliver, Natalie Imbruglia, Dan Fal-zon. Sue Jones, Marnie Reece-Wilmore, who give real dignity to soap acting. And when these performances correspond with good scripts, the show rises above the bland-soap addiction zone and has moments of engaging drama.

We have seen a lot of comings and goings since Kylie and Jason first shifted from relative obscurity to mega-stardom via Ramsay Street Mark Little is missed he fled the burbs along with Bouncer not long after Harold disappeared off rocks while fishing. As 'Neighbours' celebrates its 2000th edition, JOANNA MURRAY-SMITH declares her decidedly untrendy fetish for the soap opera and its acute depiction of suburban ordinariness. IF YOU are one of those people like me wbo use irony to excuse my low-brow tastes, you will find Neighbours the ultimate challenge. You can throw Taylor Dane on the CD player. Even Barry White.

But Neighbours is just too daggy to be kitsch. You cannot drop your Neighbours fetish at a dinner party and expect everyone else to say "Wild! You Neighbours is celebrating its 2000th episode and what makes it a long runner is just this dagginess. Sure, you can transfer your allegiances to those soaps where all the characters are under 25 and wear crucifix chokers but youth culture comes and goes in the world of soap, while the daggy old suburbs live on. Timeless. You could say Classic.

The trouble with the E-Streets of the airways is that true youth culture cannot be portrayed on the box. But soap is the perfect medium for suburban boredom, perfectly capturing the mediocrity and repetition. Neighbours has remained loyal to the great suburban ordinariness of Erinsborough. You can't have too many invisible resort complexes in your life. This is the place where teenagers and geriatrics house-share and nobody ever says: "I've hung around with a bunch of boring middle-aged suburbanites all my life and I'm not going to take it any more." The last wedding was literally a non-event when Brad bad second thoughts about the lovely Beth.

There they were perched on the Canadian Bay yacht club deck, above the same beach that Ava and Gregory Peck romped on in On the Beach. Beth and Brad, Ava and Gregory: it's good to know that just north of Frankston there's a patch of sand we can call our very own Graumann's Chinese Theatre. To those who do not belong to the Erinsbor-oughs of real life: mortgaged, grumpy and trapped in the outer suburbs, Ramsay Street appears as an Edna-Hell, where dull people tread the mill of pedestrianism right down to borrowing whipper snippers. For those who live in the suburban wilderness, however, Ramsay Street is a beacon of affirmation, letting us know that our lives petty, dismal, safe, orderly are on track with pop culture iconography. Neighbours AROLD's death was a shock (loyal fans like me did not begrudge the fact that the actual wave was too expensive to Betty Ford situation.

With the exception of Rick Alessi, the one major failure of current Neighbours is the absence of young male spunks someone in the casting department is just not on the cutting edge. And Neighbours let us all down with the Lassiters pseudo bomb blast (gas pipes exploding). Sure Locbie (Daddo, from the Beaumaris-y version of the Quaid brothers) was crippled so it wasn't a complete waste of time but it was over in a flash with a couple of extras in emergency service uniforms. Those of us who still remember the day when the bomb hit No. 96 felt cheated.

Now it's all Julie and Philip (I wish someone would tell him that his daughter's name is Hannah, not working through their relationship problems. Frankly, I think Julie's really pushing it with Philip and if she doesn't learn to give a little, and to really listen, she's going to wind up in a pokey flat with a budgie for the rest of her life. Long may Neighbours live; although I say this with a lump in my throat as that king of soaps Knots Landing comes to a close this week. I think of Knots as Neighbours with collagen. It's the grown-up Neighbours.

It's what Demi Moore watches after a long day pounding the asphalt around Laurel Canyon. Ditto Loni, now that Burt's dumped her. Wallows on the Navajo rug starting at the flickering Knots. That's the point of a great soap: it's comfort zone. Everyone needs a Neighbours: another 2000 please.

PANASONIC Panasonic Panasonic KX-T30006A KX-T3806BA MTMMOTB FOUHNG CORDLESS PHONE WITH HANDS ffiEE SPEAKER u-m am shoot and we had to make do with emotional anecdotes). But when Jim died, people from here to Stoke Newington threw parties to celebrate. Alan Dale's demise was possibly the high point of 2000 episodes although, to give him credit, the character of Jim gave new depth to shallowness and even I was a little perturbed by the ease with which his loss was absorbed. Losing the Asian family was a bonus multiculturalism doesn't belong in Ramsay Street it upsets the nostalgic Whitebread conservatism of the cosy soap ethic. The Asian family were supposed to be classy (from Hong Kong) no boat people in Erinsborough yet but they just came across as boring.

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