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New gay character for Neighbours

Spoiler: Actor Bobby Morley will play a new gay character on Ramsay Street.

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Spoiler: Neighbours’ gay youth Chris Pappas (James Mason) will finally get a romantic interest when actor Bobby Morley joins the TEN soap.

The former Home and Away and The Strip actor will play male nurse Aidan Foster who becomes a couple with Pappas.

The role is currently set for a six month stint, but could be extended.

“To be true to the Chris character, now he is a regular in storylines, we knew at some stage he needed to meet someone,” Neighbours executive producer Susan Bower told the Sunday Herald Sun.

“How it unfolds, all will be revealed, however I think viewers will find the story compelling.”

Given romantic storylines go hand-in-hand with Erinsborough youth, it’s certainly been a long time coming for Mason’s character, who came out last August.

42 Responses

  2. @Mr.Chandler Please stop talking crap, you’re digging yourself a real big hole! First off, Neighbours does not have a Gay or Lesbian character every year.

    The first gay character was bak in the late 80’s early 90’s, he was one of the school teachers at Erinshbrough High.

    The second gay character was that of Gino, who had been on the show for around 3 years.

    The first Lesbian to arrive in Ramsay Street was Lana Crawford, in 2004, she was on the show for approx 4-5 months, while she also got into a relationship with Regular character Sky Mangle.

    In 2006, it was revealed that Peppa’s mother was a Lesbian was in a relationship with another woman, that storyline was on for approx 2 months.

    In 2007, it was a ratings grab with Peppa and Rosie locking lips, while also tieing into the storyline, that Rosie may be Bi Sexual.

    In 2008 the character of Donna was introduced, and was stated to be Bi Sexual, they continued to maintain this of her character, and even had a lesbian kiss in 2009, with character Sunny Lee.

    In 2010, reccuring character Chris, arrived, and it was later revealed that he was gay. Now a Regular, he is not seeing anyone, and is currently and open gay teen on the show. Now they have casted a reccuring character Aiden, who has a 6 month contract with the show.

    So please, get you’re facts straight first before opening your mouth, ok, good!

  3. Mr Chandler you obviously don’t watch the show Chris has been a regular character for nearly a year and has been in the credits for at least the last 4 months. I think it’s great they are finally making these shows more realistic and it’s good for gay teens to have a role model in these types of shows

  4. it seems to me they only bring in lesbian or gay characters to spice up the show to grab more ratings. if they want keep up the awareness gay youths. have a perminant gay character and not just bring one in to boost ratings like they have been in the last decade

  5. I know I’m posting a lot but as a correction to my original post, I just remembered how great it was to see Dance Academy develop Sam (Tom Green) into a gay/bi character. It was interesting to see it played out and it was done quite well in my opinion (and it’s a kids’ show!)

  6. @adam. they have a lesbian character every year on the show and after a while they stop the story about the character. saying they have a story line about gays every year and saying they should stop having isn’t homophobic. homophobic is people that don’t like gays and lesbians. not liking a gay story line on a tv show isn’t homophobic.

  7. just hope this storyline is treated better than the storyline for pippas son (christopher) in home and away. its a great opportunity for neighbours to show young gay people that they are not alone and have a sense of support from a tv program.

  8. I’m surprised they hadn’t shipped Chris Pappas off to Brisbane… any gay character in the show is usually got rid of pretty quickly….

    This is a courageous move by Neighbours so good luck to them.

  11. I reckon Ramsey Street has been a hotbed of closet Gay activity for decades, its a bit like little australia with the one character being ‘the only gay in erinsborough’ failing to realise that he is surrounded by similar folk…. just wondering how this will be portrayed…. camp & cliched or more a la brokeback mountain…

  12. @pietro This should be big news! Very important for gay youths.

    It’s sad that growing up I had to watch gay stories – mostly of soaps from other countries – on the internet. Gay kids want to turn the TV on and see [gay] characters that they can identify with.

  14. they have one every year. why don’t they go through a year without having a gay couple or characters that think they are gay story lines.

  15. I remember reading an article in which Bobby moaned about having to take his shirt off alot on Home and Away.

    He’s probably glad Neighbours is not set at the beach.

  18. Guess he couldn’t go back to Summer Bay after slagging it off before he left, still being on NeighBores is better then nothing i guess.

  19. Should this even be news in 2011?

    And I expect Neighbours to be very coy about the relationship, while one UK soap has explored the topic of assisted suicide in a gay relationship recently.

  20. I’m very excited for this.

    I was on the Herald Sun page for an article on this and someone in the comments posted something along the lines of: “this is nothing new.”

    No, I think this *is* something new for Neighbours and Australian TV.

    As a gay teen, I certainly can’t remember there being a “gay male couple” made up of regular characters on Aussie TV. And centred on a character at Chris’s age.

    It’s a first for Neighbours and a first for an Australian digital channel 🙂

    I think this is something very positive and I hope it is executed well (ahem, unlike Chris’s coming out storyline)

  22. Fantastic news! Chris has been a great addition to Neighbours and I’m glad he’ll finally be getting his own storylines. Good casting too – Bobby was great in Home And Away. Really looking forward to this!

  23. Guaranteed they won’t do the potential story line justice.

    Australian drama just can never get it right. They should look to somewhere like Emmerdale in the UK to see how it’s done

  25. I thought Chris’ coming out storyline was well done, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how his relationship with Aidan will play out on screen.

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