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UK location Filmed Episodes


Guest Summer_Bay_Sunshine

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I was thinking about the recent 2014 episodes that were filmed in the UK and wondered why apart from a few episodes during the mid 90's involving Marilyn and Steven (if my memory serves me right) that why more episodes during the Early Years were not filmed in the UK.

I personally as a UK viewer that watched avidly throughout the 1990s would loved to have seen characters such as Tom & Pippa, Alf & Ailsa, Bobby, Sally, Fisher, Michael & Pippa, Sophie, Shane & Angel etc (list is endless) film episodes in the UK.

Was it purely the Channel 7 budget at the time or did other factors play a part in this? H&A was a big success in the UK during this time, I am sure UK filmed episodes would have been a huge hit :-)

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  • 2 weeks later...

They did film in London in 2001 as well. I think 1998, 2001 and 2013 are the only 3 times H&A has filmed in England. I can understand the isolated episodes filmed in England for H&A and N due to being 12'000 miles from England and having to transport equipment and actors over there.

Neighbours has filmed in England in 1990, 1992 and 2007.

Future Coronation Street actor Ben price guest appeared in the 1998 Ironbridge episode which featured a insert of a plane at a West Midlands airport.

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry to resurrect an old discussion, but I haven't visited back to the bay for a while now. I believe that during the 80s and early 90s there would have been little chance of Network Seven being able to transport their equipment out to the UK, even if they had the funds, so they would have required the technical and financial support of the UK broadcaster to film here. Until the mid 90s the ITV company who owned the rights to H&A and who were responsible for networking it to the other 13 daytime weekday ITV companies was Central Independent Television, who were a fairly small company and notoriously frugal (they bid £1000 a year for their last franchise in 1990 when all the other franchises went for millions of pounds a year, and won only because no other company bid against them). They originally bought the rights to H&A specifically as a very cheap import, rather than make their own programme to fill the network slot they were required to fill, so they weren't really planning to put any money into the soap. By 1997 Carlton Communications had bought out Central Independent Television, and as a buyer broadcaster had brought with them more money, but almost no production at all, so the money going to Network Seven may have increased by this point, but by now Network Seven weren't happy with the ITV network/Carlton's lack of commitment to H&A, unwillingness to pay larger and arguably fairer sums of money for the broadcast rights, and particularly with the increasingly extortionate amounts of editing carried out on the soap for it's UK broadcasts, including the complete dropping of a few epsiodes. his then might be why the 1998 visit happened, as an attempt by ITV/Carlton to offer Network Seven a show of support, both technical and financial, to reassure Network Seven to continue the contract with them, as well as due to the increasingly easier to transport technology available by this point. The cooperation between ITV and Network Seven didn't last long as eventually in early 2000 Network Seven had signed a contract with relatively new broadcaster Channel Five, instead of ITV, whose last episode, 2840, was shown on 8th May 2000, and billed by many of their 20 or so regional continuity announcers as the last episode in the series of Home and Away! After a legal wrangle between ITV and Channel Five, which involved ITV enacting an exclusivity clause that had been in their original contract, the soap returned on it's new home, Channel 5, on 16th July 2001. Channel 5 was paying a much higher price for the show, said at the time to cover the shows entire production costs and some, and was keen to show as much support and commitment for the show as possible, so they paid for a series of behind the scene shows, called Back To The Bay (from which this execllent site gets its name), to be shown on the channel whilst the show itself was subject to the legal wrangle. They also commissioned a special catch up episode featuring Kate Richie and Kim Cooper walking around the bay in character and discussing the many storylines that were left open some 14 months or so previously, and shown the day before the regular episodes started up on the channel. I think therefore that the UK visit in 2001 was at least partly an opportunity for the two broadcasters to physically work together and cement their new working relationship, and for Channel Five to show even more support, commitment and enthusiasm for the show. In subsequent years the ownership of Channel Five has changed several times, and the level of it's enthusiasm and commitment for Home and Away has likewise changed too, particular after the channel acquired formerly rival soap Neighbours and put the latter into the formers established time slot. It's possible that after 12 years on Channel Five that the powers that be at Network Seven were once again seeking a show of support from the UK broadcaster, or that Channel Five once again felt the need to reshow it's commitment, and that this lead to the most recent visit currently being shown in the UK.

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Home and Away have very rarely ventured out of Australia. Neighbours have filmed episodes in New York, Kenya, London as well as all the international filming for their 20th Anniversary documentary (New York, LA, London).

Two of those were to promote launches on US & African TV, but I'm surprised Home and Away hasn't done similar things. Ok, in the early days you probably wouldn't have had many characters be able to afford to go, only the Stewarts and Fisher, but they could've won a trip or something.

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  • 2 months later...

I am off to London in a few days so will take some snaps of the locations used in the Braxton episodes plus I know a former H&A actor runs a stall in a London market and I may go and see if she is there and buy something or even get an autograph. Also as Channel 5 fund a lot of the production costs of H&A I think it must mean that is controlled from the Channel 5 offices in central London, the HQ in Covent Garden and/or the studios near the Tower, so I may pass there, a building that is involved with H&A. I dont think the public can go in unless they do tours but can walk past and have a look.

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  • 1 month later...

I'm not sure Central were nominated contractor for Home and Away. I am almost certain that was Thames, then Carlton.

The 2001 visit was filmed at the time Channel 5 resumed transmission of the show but they weren't shown in the UK until weeks later.

In terms of carting equipment halfway across the world, certainly the last visit was filmed by British crews although that was done by Tiger Aspect rather than Channel 5.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Nicola Quilter, aka Donna Bishop 1994-1995.

Wow never knew that, do you know which market she runs a stall at would be great to meet her.

She runs her stall at Camden on Saturdays and Sundays and it is near the centre of the market which is on the main high street. See this link http://www.nicolaquilter.com/find-me/camden

It took me about a minute to find her stall when I went there. There is Camden Lock which is on the opposite side of the high street.

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