One of the biggest events hitting stages across the UK this March, Neighbours – The Celebration Tour arrives in Edinburgh this Wednesday 8th March. Featuring a slew of your Ramsay Street favourites, the show was originally a farewell from the cast of a cancelled institution. A revival thanks to Amazon Freevee (thus proving Jeff Bezos is actually good for something), has transformed melancholy to delight. Show mastermind, Journalist, PR professional, and Neighbours superfan, Joe Julians was kind enough to talk all things Neighbours with The QR…
Hi Joe, so the tour was originally organised as a farewell tour, have you had to make any changes since the good news, or is it just going make the whole thing much more joyous?
Well originally it was a one-night show in London to celebrate 35 years, but it got pulled a few days before when the first COVID lockdowns started happening. And then when the news came of the show ending, it very quickly became clear that one show would not cut it. So that’s when it became The Farewell Tour. Of course, it changed again once the show was revived but largely, we’ve kept things as they were – the most notable difference is how we’re ending it – the rest is just some slightly retooled conversations.
Is the tour a labour of love for you?
Very much so. I’ve been a fan my whole life and this feels as if I’ve written my own fan fiction and somehow willed it into existence. It’s all very surreal. Wonderful, but surreal.
How did the tour get put together in the first place? Was there a lot of interest amongst the cast to be part of it?
It all sort of happened by chance. I found myself in the right place at the right time to float the idea with Dean Elliott from Maple Tree Entertainment who ended up producing it. My wife, Mel, who works in theatre marketing and has been such a driving force on this tour, made some calls and the ball got rolling pretty quickly. None of us had any idea just how big it would become though.
As for the cast, none of who we have needed any convincing to come along. They are all so keen to meet the fans and to give them something special, and they have all said to me at some point how grateful they are to have some of the most passionate fans out there. The cast are looking forward to it just as much as the fans are which is lovely.
There’s such a rich history to the show, how have you even begun to select the footage and stories to include (and leave out)?
With great difficulty. We’ve got around 45-60 seconds to show some highlights per cast member, but where do you even begin with those that have decades worth of stories to pull from? In the end we decided to just focus on making those videos fun and to just show them in action from across the years – you could fill a 20 minute video with just Paul’s wedding highlights alone.
We do have more videos to show moments from across the years, but we didn’t want to show too many as more time watching videos is less time hearing the cast talk – and they have a LOT they can talk about!
Have you been surprised by anything or anyone since being recruited to the cause?
I wouldn’t say surprised by anything per say, with the exception of the show itself being pulled and then revived which was a bit of a bolt out of the blue on both occasions.
Why do you think Neighbours has enjoyed such enduring love in the UK?
I can only really answer that personally, and for me it’s that sense of familiarity and warmth that Neighbours, when at its best, does so well. That’s been some dodgy eras of the show, but when you have writers like Jason Herbison and Shane Isheev working on it like we did in the last few years, people that truly just get what the show is, it’s so easy to get sucked back in and fall in love with it all over again.
Amongst the cast you’ve put together, who do you anticipate being the most trouble on tour?
Haha I can’t answer that – it’ll be an awkward few weeks if they read it! In all seriousness though, none of them. All six have been an absolute joy to talk to from start to finish and I’m sure they will be on the road too. I couldn’t have asked for nicer people to work with.
What are you most looking forward to once things get underway.
Just getting on the road. It’s something that has been 3 and a half years in the making, so getting to Belfast and meeting them all in person is going to be such a brilliant moment. For me personally I can’t wait to get to the Palladium. That venue is just steeped in history – and we’ll be putting Annie Jones and Stefan Dennis back on stage there for the first time since 1988 too which is fun.
What do you want your audiences to leave thinking and talking about?
I just hope they all have a great time. We have six absolute legends up on that stage and each of them could fill the whole run time individually, (as evidenced by Alan Fletcher’s solo The Doctor Will See You Now tour which is a great show) so there will be no shortage of moments to talk about after. And if we have any past fans who had bailed out of watching the show over the years but are there because they used to love it so much, if we can get some of them watching it when it comes back then I’ll be pleased.
