There is a drama-filled time ahead in Neighbours as a number of the Ramsay Street regulars as well as a couple of guest stars head out to the Australian Outback and we know that at least one person won’t be making it home alive.
Holly Hoyland embarks on what she thinks will be a romantic break with her new secret fling, Heath Royce, to a remote station, unaware of what lays ahead. Concerned for Holly’s safety, Haz and Mackenzie follow their friend to save her from Heath, knowing that he is a very different person to what Holly thinks, living under a false identity after committing fraud.
Toadie Rebecchi and his ex-wife Melanie also manage to get involved in the drama, and we know from the recent trailer for ‘Death in the Outback’ week that Tess Carmichael also makes an unexpected appearance at Heath and Holly’s retreat.
In the run up to this epic week Toadie has struggled with mental health as he reflects on everything that has happened in his life, including the disappearance and suspected death of his first wife, Dee, her eventual return, the tragic death of his second wife, Sonya, the collapse of his third marriage to Melanie and a turbulent first year of marriage to Terese Willis.
In recent episodes we have seen Toadie get close to breaking point, reaching out to therapist Rhonda Rubio to try and make sense of everything that he is feeling.
This story is, of course, leading up to Toadie’s departure from the show after 29 years of living on Ramsay Street. It was revealed in June that Ryan Moloney was stepping down from playing the role but staying with the show as part of the directing team.
We sat down with Ryan to talk about his exit from the show and the exciting week of episodes filmed on location which result in another iconic Neighbours death. We asked Ryan how it felt filming these big episodes, knowing that it was the final time that he would get to do something like this as Toadie?
“It was something very special to be able to do that kind of content, first of all, with Toadie’s mental health issues and showing the repercussions of all of the traumatic things that have happened in his life come to fruition. And he’s very scared he is losing his mind.”
There is no doubt that Toadie is going out with a bang and Ryan is clearly excited by the storylines he has worked on in recent months, but equally, was excited to be filming out in some of Australia’s most breath-taking locations.
“It was a wonderful opportunity to explore these places and show them, and then to be involved in such a large scenario, going out into the Outback with Neighbours.
We’d never done something like that, so large. So to be part of that was awesome.”
Ryan also talked about his castmates and the crew that travelled out to South Australia to film the episodes.
“You know when you go on school camp and everyone bonds together because they had this lived experience, it was very much like that.”
One of the things we took away from Outback week was the scenery. Aside from the death and drama, you would be mistaken for thinking the episodes were an ad for the Australian Tourist Board, and Ryan agreed.
“The Australian OUtback is just SPECTACULAR. It is very, very beautiful.”
Discussing his own departure from the show Ryan said:
“It was an honour for my ‘going out’ to be part of all of that and to have that story be told out there. It was really lovely.”
Of course, Ryan recently revealed that it wasn’t his decision to leave Neighbours and the producers told him that Toadie was being written out of the show. Whilst many fans feel let down by an icon of the show departing like this, Ryan is a lot happier at how things worked out.
“I’ve been wanting to leave for quite a long time, but Neighbours is one of those jobs where you work with awesome people and get paid really well.
If you had a mate who had one of these jobs you’d be saying ‘Mate, what are you doing? You’ve got to stay there, see it out for as long as you can. Even if you do want to leave, just suck it up and stay there.’
So I am quite grateful that they made that decision for me,” Ryan continued.
“I don’t think I could ever say no to a contract. I’d always be like ‘Yes, OK, I’ll do another one’, and that’s not the way you want it to be doing Neighbours. You don’t want to have that level of resentment in there.”
Whenever any character drops out of a long running series like Neighbours, there is always the question of how they are going to be written out. We asked Ryan if he had a conversation with the producers about Toadie’s exit and how he wanted to see the character leave the show.
“I’ve always said if Toadie was going to get killed off, I’d like him to stop a bomb threat in Ramsay Street by jumping on the bomb and saving the lives of everyone, but him just getting blown to pieces.”
So, we will have to wait and see if Ryan’s departure wish for Toadie comes true, but it is clear that he is happy with what the future holds for him as a director on the show and in his personal life too.
Neighbours’ ‘Death in the Outback’ week begins on Monday 19th August with episodes streaming Monday-Thursday on Amazon Freevee and Amazon Prime Video, but Toadie’s personal story is in full swing right now as he struggles with everything that has happened to him in his life.
We have more to share from our interview with Ryan as well as chats with Lucinda Cowden (Melanie) and Lucinda Armstrong-Hall (Holly), so make sure you check back to Ramsay Street UK and follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest goings-on from our favourite Australian suburb.
