The announcement of the return of Neighbours should be happy one for the actors on the show. However, blindsided former-cast members have been left confused about why they weren’t informed about the revival.
It’s been revealed that only four Neighbours actors – Stefan Dennis, (Paul Robinson) Alan Fletcher, (Dr Karl Kennedy), Ryan Moloney, (Toadfish) and Jackie Woodburne, (Susan Kennedy) – were told that the soap was restarting.
Takaya Honda, who played David Tanaka on the show, took to his Instagram to tell his followers he had no knowledge that Neighbours was coming back.
“Apart from these three and Stefan, the rest of the cast are finding out with you. Please give us time to process. We don’t know anything more,” he said alongside a photo of Moloney, Woodburne and Fletcher.
Matty Wilson, who played Aaron Brennan shared a similar sentiment, writing “Did not see this coming” alongside a promotional video of Susan telling Karl that Neighbours was returning.
Wilson later shared an Instagram post seemingly celebrating the return of the hit soap, writing: “Hey guys let’s take one last photo in this set”……. [Neighbours] is back baby!!!!”
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Georgia Stone, who played Mackenzie Hargreaves from 2019 – 2022 shared an Instagram story saying that she wasn’t aware of Neighbours return, either.
“Thanks for all the DMs! Only found out Neighbours was returning when you all did, so I have no idea if I’m coming back! But thanks for asking and wanting more of Mackenzie,” she wrote.
Yesterday, it was announced that Neighbours is coming back after a short hiatus since its “series finale” that aired earlier in 2022. The soap has now found a new home on Amazon’s AVOD service, Freevee, which bought the rights from former Neighbours distributor, Fremantle. The new season will premiere exclusively on Freevee in both the U.K. and the U.S. and will come alongside thousands of episodes from previous seasons.
“We start shooting again next year, early in the year,” Maloney told Kyle Sandilands and his new co-host Brittany Hockley on the Kyle and Jackie O show this morning.
“And then it’ll be on air on (Channel) 10 first, in Australia, at the end of the year. Then it’ll be on Amazon Freevee worldwide.”
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