Splitsville for Neighbours’ Susan & Karl?

Spoilers: After 17 years as a bedrock couple in ELEVEN’s  Neighbours, is the unthinkable about to occur: Susan and Dr. Karl Kennedy about to be torn apart?

It wouldn’t be the first time. They’ve been separated, divorced and even re-married twice before.

But, as actress Jackie Woodburne explains, they are again heading for splitsville and it isn’t acrimonious.

“This time there isn’t a younger woman involved which makes a nice change,” she explains. “It’s off the back of Susan’s involvement with ‘Jim Dolan’ who was the cancer patient that she got overly-attached to but who died.

“It’s all about empty-nest syndrome because the kids are all gone. Who is she if she’s not a mother and a carer? So it’s about her moving away to find out who she is as a single-person without people to look after.”

But Neighbours characters are rarely perceived as fully-fledged Neighbours characters if they’re not living on Ramsay Street. Won’t a separation mean that Susan and Karl will be under separate roofs?

“I think it will be Susan, because she’s the one instigating it, even though he’s the one who finally pulled the plug and said ‘I can’t live with you and not be with you.’ I think she thinks, unrealistically, that they can live together under the same roof as single people. Which if anyone has ever tried is probably nice in theory but a bit tricky. So it becomes apparent that it’s not going to work and says ‘You stay, I’ll go.'”

Such change to a couple that has been at the heart of the show will undoubtedly drive major storylines -but audiences feel a connection to the couple.

“I know. People are not happy. But I think they are one of those couples who will always have a connection. They’ve been together since they were in uni. They’re so bonded, they’re soulmates.  Fletch (Alan Fletcher) and I enjoy working together too much so they can’t separate us for too long.”

Woodburne, who has become the matriarch of the long-running soap, has no plans to exit the show she has been loyal to for 17 years. Clearly she loves her job.

“I absolutely do. It’s a great job. You get to go to work everyday and do what you love to do. Not many actors get to do that,” she insists.

“You get paid every week, and not many actors get that luxury either. So you can plan your life. But you also get to work with a lot of people who have come through the studio in the last 17 years. Some of them have been extraordinary actors, young people who head off and do exciting things. Every now and then when you get one of those kids they really lift your game. They make the work exciting again. They have new energy and passion and excitement so it’s great.

“The downside, if there is one, is the commitment. You can have a few weeks off here and there, but it’s like anything. You have periods of loving it and periods when you need to find new ways of doing it to keep it fresh and interesting. It’s an uninterrupted commitment I suppose, where you could go and do something else or take a breather.”

In FremantleMedia’s hands, Neighbours has recently undergone production change, lifting from 5 episodes being shot in a week to 6 and dropping from 3 cameras to 2. But Woodburne says despite some concerns the model has its benefits.

“It seems to be working very well. For the previous couple of years the style of the show was lots of people in lots of scenes. Everybody was there all the time and you were often just texture. Now what they’ve done, and it’s a good thing, is they’ve made the stories much more focused so that you’ve got more 2, 3 and 4-hander scenes that advance the storytelling. And that means not so many people having to be required in so many scenes, so you can streamline it a bit,” she says.

“We were all terrified when they said 6 a week. But it’s a lesson. It works.

“In fact we used to shoot til 7:15, 7:45, now we wrap at 5:45. But we shoot an extra day in studio. We used to shoot 3 now we shoot 4 days. So it’s just been re-arranged. We haven’t lost any rehearsal time which is good for the actors. The cameras have moved from 3 to 2 cameras, so there are multiple runs of a scene. The editors have several options to play with.”

Similarly, the show has undergone change on air by shifting from TEN to ELEVEN. The show is regularly the top-rating show on multichannels. It was another moment when everybody held their breath.

“I think it was evolution. The fact that we’re still on air, still rating and still doing well in the UK is great. So I think it was to make it suit the market. It’s a business-world now, isn’t it?  Neighbours is that leviathan that keeps going and throws off a few arms and legs and then grows a few more,” she says.

But if fans have any say in it, performers like Woodburne, Alan Fletcher, Tom Oliver and Ryan Moloney are the DNA of the show, as long term actors who have survived producers, writers and even network executives.

“That’s lovely if that’s the case and I’d certainly like to think 17 years is worth something, but look at the people we’ve lost. ‘Harold.’ Irreplaceable. Absolutely irreplaceable. An iconic character. But the show went on. So I don’t think anybody is the final straw,” she admits.

“Normally as an actor you have 6 weeks to learn you role and you have a beginning, middle and an end. With this role there is a caretake aspect as well because you hold the history of the character, more so than anybody. Nobody has been with her as long as I have, so I do feel enormous responsibility and sometimes it’s difficult to relinquish bits of her to support a story or advance a plot.

“But I try to keep the three or four things that I believe are her essence and even when I get a story that I think is a bit challenging, if I can maintain those three or four bits then you think ‘Gosh, I’m not the same person I was 17 years ago or 3 years ago or even 1 year ago.’ Things happen in your life that come along and change you and the same is true of a fictional character so you’ve just got to factor them into her development.”

Like many of her soap peers, Susan Kennedy has had more than her share of odd storylines in 17 years.

“Ha! There’s a few of them that I try not to let inform the character too much. Memory lapses, priests…,” she laughs.

But while she isn’t guaranteeing another 17 years, and the upcoming split is yet to have its resolution, Jackie Woodburne is happy thanks to keep giving an essence of herself to Susan Kennedy.

“There was a life before Neighbours and hopefully there will be one afterwards, but we’ll see.”

Neighbours airs 6:30pm weeknights on ELEVEN.