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In all soaps, there are characters that become almost as well known as
the soap itself. Neighbours originally had Helen Daniels, then in later
years Harold Bishop. In Home and Away, you think of Alf Stewart. These
characters have stayed around for yonks and in Alf's case, for a Yank as
well. Of course staying around doesn't automatically make you a great
character.
If you watched Home and Away during the eighties and through into the
nineties, a week of Home and Away wouldn't seem to go by without Alf
going off at someone or something. Whether it was Luke playing his
saxophone, walking in on teenagers playing strip poker or going off at
Irene saying something about whisky bottles. Sites and webpages were set
up honouring just this.
When Ailsa died in 2000, Alf lost his long time partner and then in 2001
his troublesome Duncan left as well, meaning within just six months Alf
had gone from having a family to being a lone ranger.
Since then, in my opinion, the character of Alf has been on a downward
slope. Within months of Ailsa dying he was pointlessly kissing an other
woman at Leah and Vinnie's wedding. I'll acknowledge that going through
a change in your life like Alf has can change the way you look at life,
but this is a soap. You can control the way someone reacts to events
like this.
I'm not campaigning for Alf to turn into Muhammed Ali, mouthing off
whilst punching anyone within reach, that's not Alf either.
Alf is one of the old guys, moaning, complaining at the state of the
world. He is not a bad man, in fact quite the opposite, but current Alf
justs stands there, serving drinks, doing very little.
For someone so well known, it's a surprise he isn't more popular. He
can't even give the "left the show" excuse. |