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television programme, Lost in Space (Channel 2), screened on September 2, 1992, cites a British emigrant relocated, and unemployed, in an outer Brisbane suburb, blaming Neighbours for having misled him to Australia. The third difference pits Australian egalitarianism against British class hierarchies. The myth of Australia as egalitarian circulates widely in the UK as well as in Australia. It readily enables an elision of any working-class or unemployed populations. That elision was literally as well as metaphorically bought by Barry Brown, BBC Head of Purchased Programmes: “There isn’t a class system in Australia – or, if you like, everyone in Australia is middle class” (quoted by Tyrer 1987). In this way, Neighbours can focus British viewers’ notions that there is a safe, middle-class/classless suburban heaven down under. Wholesome neighborliness is highly pertinent here. Peter Pinne, executive producer of Neighbours, is quoted as ascribing its success to the fact that “it provides a vision of something that is lacking in the personal lives of many people in Britain today, particularly a sense of personal commitment and caring in the community” (Solomon 1989). The fourth difference concerns Australian accent and idiom, and their differences from British English. Acceptability of these differences has been facilitated not only by the steady succession of Australian television and film product screened in the UK since the early 1970s, but also within UK television production by the growing recognition of regional and ethnic accents since the early 1960s first moves away from plummy upper-class enunciation. Thus when “bludger” is noted in a Daily Telegraph (February 2, 1988) review as not being understood, it is not a matter of criticism or condescension, as in some reviews of Crocodile Dundee (see Crofts 1992: 210–220). The opening of the review indicates a ready acceptance of difference: “‘I was just goin’ to put the nosebag on. Fancy a bit of tucker yourself?’ This is the essential tone of Neighbours, BBC-1’s usually [sic] successful bought-in Australia soap. It is just quaintly foreign enough to please without confusing” (Marrin 1988). Of these four differences, then, between Australia and Britain, three (concerning the weather, suburbia, and egalitarianism) are virtually dissolved in that they enable the projection of British fantasies on to Neighbours. The last difference functions as a marker of cultural difference so familiar as to present no problems of assimilation. In sum, Neighbours’s huge success in the UK can therefore be traced in the three general categories of explanation set out above. Its ratings suggest beyond doubt that all of the general textual “success factors” of Neighbours apply in the UK; indeed, almost all have been commented on by British reviewers anxious to make sense of the “Neighbours phenomenon.” It is worth noting, second, that the institutional and cultural facilitators of Neighbours’s UK success are both very powerful, and also often historically fortuitous. Recall the opening up of daytime television on BBC1 and the expansion of tabloid coverage of television in 1986. Factors such as these are likely to escape the most assiduous attentions of program producers and buyers, as well as of governmental cultural and trade agencies concerned with promoting
DOI link for television programme, Lost in Space (Channel 2), screened on September 2, 1992, cites a British emigrant relocated, and unemployed, in an outer Brisbane suburb, blaming Neighbours for having misled him to Australia. The third difference pits Australian egalitarianism against British class hierarchies. The myth of Australia as egalitarian circulates widely in the UK as well as in Australia. It readily enables an elision of any working-class or unemployed populations. That elision was literally as well as metaphorically bought by Barry Brown, BBC Head of Purchased Programmes: “There isn’t a class system in Australia – or, if you like, everyone in Australia is middle class” (quoted by Tyrer 1987). In this way, Neighbours can focus British viewers’ notions that there is a safe, middle-class/classless suburban heaven down under. Wholesome neighborliness is highly pertinent here. Peter Pinne, executive producer of Neighbours, is quoted as ascribing its success to the fact that “it provides a vision of something that is lacking in the personal lives of many people in Britain today, particularly a sense of personal commitment and caring in the community” (Solomon 1989). The fourth difference concerns Australian accent and idiom, and their differences from British English. Acceptability of these differences has been facilitated not only by the steady succession of Australian television and film product screened in the UK since the early 1970s, but also within UK television production by the growing recognition of regional and ethnic accents since the early 1960s first moves away from plummy upper-class enunciation. Thus when “bludger” is noted in a Daily Telegraph (February 2, 1988) review as not being understood, it is not a matter of criticism or condescension, as in some reviews of Crocodile Dundee (see Crofts 1992: 210–220). The opening of the review indicates a ready acceptance of difference: “‘I was just goin’ to put the nosebag on. Fancy a bit of tucker yourself?’ This is the essential tone of Neighbours, BBC-1’s usually [sic] successful bought-in Australia soap. It is just quaintly foreign enough to please without confusing” (Marrin 1988). Of these four differences, then, between Australia and Britain, three (concerning the weather, suburbia, and egalitarianism) are virtually dissolved in that they enable the projection of British fantasies on to Neighbours. The last difference functions as a marker of cultural difference so familiar as to present no problems of assimilation. In sum, Neighbours’s huge success in the UK can therefore be traced in the three general categories of explanation set out above. Its ratings suggest beyond doubt that all of the general textual “success factors” of Neighbours apply in the UK; indeed, almost all have been commented on by British reviewers anxious to make sense of the “Neighbours phenomenon.” It is worth noting, second, that the institutional and cultural facilitators of Neighbours’s UK success are both very powerful, and also often historically fortuitous. Recall the opening up of daytime television on BBC1 and the expansion of tabloid coverage of television in 1986. Factors such as these are likely to escape the most assiduous attentions of program producers and buyers, as well as of governmental cultural and trade agencies concerned with promoting
television programme, Lost in Space (Channel 2), screened on September 2, 1992, cites a British emigrant relocated, and unemployed, in an outer Brisbane suburb, blaming Neighbours for having misled him to Australia. The third difference pits Australian egalitarianism against British class hierarchies. The myth of Australia as egalitarian circulates widely in the UK as well as in Australia. It readily enables an elision of any working-class or unemployed populations. That elision was literally as well as metaphorically bought by Barry Brown, BBC Head of Purchased Programmes: “There isn’t a class system in Australia – or, if you like, everyone in Australia is middle class” (quoted by Tyrer 1987). In this way, Neighbours can focus British viewers’ notions that there is a safe, middle-class/classless suburban heaven down under. Wholesome neighborliness is highly pertinent here. Peter Pinne, executive producer of Neighbours, is quoted as ascribing its success to the fact that “it provides a vision of something that is lacking in the personal lives of many people in Britain today, particularly a sense of personal commitment and caring in the community” (Solomon 1989). The fourth difference concerns Australian accent and idiom, and their differences from British English. Acceptability of these differences has been facilitated not only by the steady succession of Australian television and film product screened in the UK since the early 1970s, but also within UK television production by the growing recognition of regional and ethnic accents since the early 1960s first moves away from plummy upper-class enunciation. Thus when “bludger” is noted in a Daily Telegraph (February 2, 1988) review as not being understood, it is not a matter of criticism or condescension, as in some reviews of Crocodile Dundee (see Crofts 1992: 210–220). The opening of the review indicates a ready acceptance of difference: “‘I was just goin’ to put the nosebag on. Fancy a bit of tucker yourself?’ This is the essential tone of Neighbours, BBC-1’s usually [sic] successful bought-in Australia soap. It is just quaintly foreign enough to please without confusing” (Marrin 1988). Of these four differences, then, between Australia and Britain, three (concerning the weather, suburbia, and egalitarianism) are virtually dissolved in that they enable the projection of British fantasies on to Neighbours. The last difference functions as a marker of cultural difference so familiar as to present no problems of assimilation. In sum, Neighbours’s huge success in the UK can therefore be traced in the three general categories of explanation set out above. Its ratings suggest beyond doubt that all of the general textual “success factors” of Neighbours apply in the UK; indeed, almost all have been commented on by British reviewers anxious to make sense of the “Neighbours phenomenon.” It is worth noting, second, that the institutional and cultural facilitators of Neighbours’s UK success are both very powerful, and also often historically fortuitous. Recall the opening up of daytime television on BBC1 and the expansion of tabloid coverage of television in 1986. Factors such as these are likely to escape the most assiduous attentions of program producers and buyers, as well as of governmental cultural and trade agencies concerned with promoting
ABSTRACT
STEPHEN CROFTS