Since it was revealed last November that Neighbours was returning to our screens, one of the biggest questions on the lips of fans is “What will they do with Mike Young?”. The character, played by Guy Pearce, was a Ramsay Street regular from 1986 until 1989. He was part of a golden era of the show where he was watched alongside Annie Jones, Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue by millions of adoring fans across the world.
Mike was never seen again and rarely mentioned until the show’s “finale” in 2022 where Mike was seen returning to Erinsborough to visit his daughter, Sam, who had recently started working at Lassiters Hotel. Whilst visiting his daughter Mike bumped into his first love, Jane Harris. The reunion between the pair was the surprise big story of the show’s final 3 episodes as the characters took a trip down memory lane, complete with flashbacks to the era of Helen Daniels, Bouncer and milkshakes at Daphne’s Coffee Shop. The finale episode ended with Jane and Mike declaring their love for each other and Mike agreeing to purchase 24 Ramsay Street to start a new life with Jane.
Fast forward to 2023 and Neighbours is back. Annie Jones has been announced to be returning in the role of Jane, but what of Mike Young? Since leaving Neighbours in 1989 Guy Pearce has been a busy man, appearing in a series of huge blockbuster movies including Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, LA Confidential, The Hurt Locker and Iron Man 3, as well as numerous TV series across the world. Fans were surprised when Guy took time out his busy schedule to shoot his scenes for the Neighbours finale, but surely, now that Neighbours is back, Mike wouldn’t come back to Erinsborough again, would he?
In an interview with the Good Weekend Talks podcast, discussing upcoming projects, Guy was asked about his appearance in the final episode of Neighbours and how he felt when he heard that the show was returning.
“Annie and I called each other and said ‘what do we do now, because we are living in the street’,” talking of his on-screen love interest Jane Harris, played by Annie Jones. She appeared with Pearce in the 1980s, returning to the show in 2020.
“And she said ‘well I’m alright because I’m on the show anyway, but what are you going to do?’ I said ‘I don’t know’, so we are in the process of working that out.”
When asked if we can expect to see him return to Neighbours, Pearce said “You may, you know, because obviously if I’m going to extricate myself from the show, I want to do it respectfully. I wasn’t just going to go ‘well, bad luck, you had your chance, that was it’.”
He then went on to seemingly confirm that he would be returning “There may be a little appearance or two. It’s alright, I am happy to be there”.
So while nothing is official, it seems that Mike Young, complete with his biker jacket, may be back on the street again, but what does that mean for Jane’s happy ending? Viewers will need to tune in to find out.
Neighbours returned to production in April at the Fremantle studios in Melbourne and new episodes will be streaming in the UK on Amazon FreeVee later this year. Fans can currently catch up with every episode from the years 2012 – 2016 as well as a host of classic episodes from every era of the show’s 38 year history on the streaming platform.