The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 121

was there The soapie Neighbours reached its peak in 1987, when Chaiiene and Scott (Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan) walked down the aisle. Brian Walsh witnessed the romance both on and off-screen. Interview by Jacqui Lang i) To I My involvement with Jason and Kylie began rm when I was Ten's national publicity director. At the time, Neighbours wu on the Seven Network, rating very well in Melbourne and Brisbane but not Sydney. In those days, the early '80s, if a show was to survive, it had to work well in the two key markets, Melbourne and Sydney.

My boss said to me, "I think we're going to have to pick up this show, Neighbours, from Channel Seven." It was only rating single figures on Seven in Sydney and I asked what made him think it would do any better on our network. His response: "You're just going to have to get the thing to work!" So, we took the show on board. I was given a directive to inject tome high-level promotions and marketing into salvaging the show. We had four weeks or it was gone. So, I developed a whole lot of promotions linked in with Westfield appearances.

The role of Charlene had just been cast with Kylie Minogue. My first impression of her was that she had enormous presence for someone so slight of build, so gentle. And Jason had joined the 'show as Scott Jason was one of the most giving, positive, happy-go-lucky young people I've ever met in this industry. From a publicist's point of view, this was a dream factory Charlene was a tough, confident young motor mechanic and Jason, as Scott, was the schoolboy that every girl wanted to fall in love with. We really hit hard at promoting and marketing those two kids around Australia.

We did everything from America's Cup racing off the WA coast to doing the vineyards in South Australia. It was exhausting for them but they'll tdl you now they had an absolute balL We took them to Thredbo and Perisher a couple of times every winter for four or five days in the snow and the trade-off was a two-hour photo session with a TV magazine or a newspaper. They were being paid very well, they were leading a terrific lifestyle. The wedding was for me an ideal marketing opportunity. I went to the Grundy producers and went to Jason and Kylie and said this is obviously a pivotal part of the Neighbours storyline.

We'd like to do something a bit different beyond the television screen and give people an opportunity to be part of the wedding. So, we did a major promotion where we invited people to be part of the wedding breakfast. We took over the ballroom of the Park Royal Hotel at Parramatta (in Sydney) 400 lucky winners got the opportunity to attend the wedding breakfast The precursor to this was Kylie and lason would make an appearance and display the wedding cake on stage. The wedding cake was an eight-tiered cake. I've still got the photo at home.

I've never seen anything like it There would have been 6000 people. Security had to prevent any more from going inside the centre it couldn't contain any more people. It was as simple as a wedding cake, Jason and Kylie on stage, a speech and the cutting of the cake. And then there was this mast riot We had to stop the appearance at this point to prevent people getting crushed, Tho wtddkiQ of tti docsdos Chsvton and Scott majdo th covac of 7lm macjarino. secret now that Kyiie and Jason were seeing each other offscreen at the time.

It wu a challenge to keep it quiet My advice to the network wu to contain this news about their relationship. I said if it does get out it will make life hell for them. So, every year we used to take them away, usually to Hawaii or somewhere in the United States, where they could enjoy themselves on a beach holiday where no one recognised them. We sometimes made sure Jason wu seen with another girl the oldest trick in the book, to keep people guessing. Their TV wedding wu the pinnacle of the show's success; the biggest event in all the Neighbours hype, promotion and marketing.

It made the cover of Along with all this hype wu the release of the single, Suddenly (by Angry Anderson), the official wedding song in Neighbours. Months before all this fanfare, the wedding itself wu quietly filmed in a small church outside Nunawading in Melbourne. It wu shot in great secrecy, three months before it went to air. Typical Australian TV-finance style, there must have been just 14 people at the wedding! They couldn't afford much by way of extras. Basically, anyone hanging around the set that day put on a suit or a frock and went along to the church.

It wu shot with lots of soft lenses; Kylie had a halo effect around her veil she walked up the aisle. It wu no Afiy McBeal ceremony, with a cast of 120 and a party afterwards. It wu formula. I'm sure soon they wrapped, they were moving into the next scene. During that era, Jason, Kyiie and I spent a lot of time together and we holidayed together quite a bit It's no Time magazine, a first That shot of Jason and Kylie had 5P the headline: How Aussie Soaps Rule The When it went to air, ratings went through the roof.

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