Neighbours legend reveals if she will return after unexpected axing | Soaps

Neighbours fans were left bereft earlier this month when legendary actress Lucinda Cowden announced her departure from the Australian soap.

The star has played Melanie Pearson intermittently since 1987, and her exit – just weeks after on-screen ex-husband Toadie Rebecchi’s (Ryan Moloney) own swansong – has signalled a new era for the show ahead of its 40th year.

With Mel first arriving on Ramsay Street as Henry Ramsay’s (Craig McLachlan) girlfriend, Lucinda shared early scenes with the iconic Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue, who played Scott and Charlene Robinson.

She was then reintroduced as a regular character, settling down with Joe Mangel (Mark Little). The pair left together in 1990, and she would next be seen in a specially filmed scene on the banks of the Thames for the show’s 20th anniversary in 2005.

Melanie reappeared in 2020, securing herself as a real fan-favourite and forming a crucial part of what was considered to be the last ever episode 2 years later.

Upon its Amazon Prime Video revival we’ve seen her deal with the consequences of a criminal past in the UK, an affair with Toadie and more recently, a love triangle with Vic Stone (Craig Hall) and Jane Harris (Annie Jones).

With Lucinda’s last episode streaming today, she spoke to Metro about the overwhelming fan reaction, an unfortunate injury sustained during her final scenes and her excitement at appearing in the upcoming 40th Anniversary Tour.

Were you surprised by the outpouring of love you’ve received?

It has blown my tiny mind. I’m just completely overwhelmed and incredibly grateful. Bloody flattered, for an old girl! It’s just been delightfully lovely, and I do appreciate everybody’s care. So many people have checked in on me and I’m sorry that I haven’t got back to everybody, but it’s been so lovely. Thank you all so much.

At the moment at Neighbours, they still don’t know whether they’re being renewed, so I don’t think I’m really at the top of their needs and thoughts because they’ve all got a lot on their plate, but I do appreciate the nudge. Let’s hope that it helps them come to their senses for goodness’ sake! No, whatevz’, it’s all good and I’m just blown away by it. 

Did it cement to you how much people care about Melanie, and about yourself?

It wasn’t to do with Mel, people were saying ‘You’ve lost your job, oh bless.’ It’s incredibly thoughtful that I connected with so many people because that’s the whole reason why you do this job to affect people. It’s a beautiful thing to get that back. Amazing.

So many fans wanted Melanie to be revealed to be Krista’s mum. Would you have liked to have seen that play out or did you have your own ideas?

Oh god, so did Majella and I! We just thought ‘If they’re not going to write it, we’ll just play it like that.’ She and I get along like a house on fire and we just play with each other. I think we drove everybody completely crazy on the set. We’d just go off into our own little world making up songs and singing them. We felt like that’s what Mel and Krista did [during their time in London], when Mel was her nanny. We made a backstory. I would’ve loved that, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen. Even though she’s pretty damn good at keeping secrets, not knowing that you’ve had a baby would be a hard one – even in the soap world. Then again, she could’ve been knocked out for 9 months! There’s still hope.

There’s so many things [I’d have liked her to explore]. I’d have loved Mel to go really down the wellness area. ‘Well-Mel’. I think it would’ve been great for her to start making remedies for people. She could poison everybody or dose them with something they weren’t expecting. It could lead to lots of hilarity. I liked the idea of her getting the kooky stuff, Madam Zolga-ry, witchey-poo stuff. 

You do kooky so well…

I always assumed that is what she’d keep doing. Who would’ve known that all that time she’d been a fugitive from the British law? For goodness sakes. A drug deal gone wrong. You never know what’s gonna happen, do you?

I actually loved every opportunity to do different things. As an actor I suppose you don’t always want to do the comedy all the time, you want to do the drama and show you can squeeze a tear out here and there. I actually embraced all of the crazy storylines that we’ve had, and the sad and mad ones that you just do. Part of the fun of the fair.

It wasn’t your choice to leave, did it come as a total surprise or did you have an inkling that this was the path they were potentially going down with the character?

There was always something [on my mind] about ‘Where are we going to live?’ I always had that in the back of my mind when we came back. ‘If they do get [Mel and Toadie] back together, where are they going to live? There’s nowhere else on Ramsay Street.’ There was that.

I was aware that we had a very big cast – it was much bigger than it was. The main cast was about 31 [people], whereas previously it had been max’ 25. We were a few people over and I did think that they were probably going to get rid of some.

When I was told, I had no idea that was the way the conversation was going to go. It was a shock, and I felt like I’d done something wrong. You can’t help but think that. I found out last December, so we’re now in November. If I haven’t processed it by now, then I’ve got a problem. It still hurts, I was gutted. 

Now the news is out, has there been a resurgence of that emotion?

Absolutely. You have to deal with it all. I’d just left a couple of days before I came over to the UK for my meet and greets earlier in the year. I so wanted to tell people because I felt like such a fake, sitting there and them saying ‘What’s coming up for Mel?’ You feel a bit inauthentic, and I’ve always tried to be as authentic as possible with fans of the show because that’s what they deserve. But there’s nothing you can do about that. You have to keep all sorts of stupid secrets in this world, it makes us feel like fakes. ‘If I did ever leave, it wouldn’t be my decision’ was how I tried to frame it. It was really hard to say. Nobody else knew except my [partner] Ed. I was holding it together. When you have really lovely people saying really nice things to you, it’s so hard. I’m such a gusher of a person so it took a lot. 

You filmed your final scenes just days before your last UK appearance…

They would’ve been a little while earlier, but then I broke my nose, so I had to go back and re-do some of those scenes. I filmed them on the Monday after their production break and I left on the Tuesday morning. My mum was saying ‘You’ll not be able to go darling’, but I was like ‘I’m going!’ Nobody was taking that away from me, I’ve had enough things taken away.

Were you satisfied with the way the character was wrapped up? 

I think it’s great that she gets a happy ending. She’s a very spontaneous character, and you can get away with it with Mel. She’s somebody who just says ‘I’m going there, see ya everybody!’

But we filmed the scenes with a two-week difference. On a beautiful, sunny day I broke my nose. When I came back it was chucking it down. There were three actors that were supposed to be in the scene that were all now on time-outs, so I had three extras just looking at me. It was the weirdest thing. It’s given me a really good story to tell – I might get 10 minutes of stand-up out of it if I play my cards right!

Is it right that executive producer Jason Herbison had plans to reintroduce the character earlier, but he thought you were still based in the UK?

Yeah. He said, ‘If I’d known you were here, I’d have called you in much earlier.’ You never know how anything is going to be. That’s the beauty of what life is like and it’s about how you deal with things. This is my wise saying for the day – a life hack. It’s more about how you react when bad things happen, then the bad things happening. I’m a very fluid kind of person!

In a way, these trips to the UK must be like returning home. You did live here for a long time…

It totally is! The last time I was over, I caught up with friends that I hadn’t seen for 15 years because I hadn’t been back. Not many of them have come over [to Australia] because it’s a big old trip either way. It was absolutely incredible to be able to spend time with some lovely friends. My brother and his family are in Leamington Spa so they’ll hopefully be coming to the Birmingham show. It’s going to be great. I think in each place I’ll have some little folk to come and visit me. My agent is in Newcastle. 

Would you consider more British work? Fans may have forgotten your presenting stint on CBBC’s Parallel 9 and your show at the Edinburgh Fringe.

I was in The Basil Brush Show! I had funny glasses and funny hair. I’m a comedy character. I’m very versatile (laughs).

There’s so many things that I still want to do. People might look at me and think ’She’s so old, what’s she going to do.’ But I feel like there’s a heap of things to do. I’ve been working on a secret project, and I’ll be talking to some people in the UK about it. I’m doing some classes with some kids over the Christmas holidays here, and I’m writing a funny song for the 40th Anniversary Tour. I’m not a singer, so it’s gotta be funny. There’s no Alan Fletcher in our show this time around. 

Neighbours 40th Anniversary Tour dates and venues

Monday 3rd February 2025: Symphony Hall, Birmingham

Wednesday 5th February 2025: City Hall, Newcastle

Friday 7th February 2025: SEC Armadillo, Glasgow

Wednesday 12th February 2025: London Palladium 

Sunday 16th February 2025: Millennium Centre, Cardiff

Tuesday 18th February 2025: Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

Tickets are on sale now and details on how to purchase can be found on the Maple Tree Entertainment website.

There are 6 dates in the 40th Anniversary Tour. Is there anywhere in particular you’re excited to visit, or anywhere over here you’d like to visit?

I’ve never been to Ireland. I’m really sad that we’re not [going there]. The place I’m most excited to go to, that I’ve not been in ages is Cardiff. I absolutely adore Cardiff. When I lived in the UK, I did a lot of radio plays, and we made them there. I did a play there in the Chapter Theatre with a company called Made in Wales. It’s a little bit like Melbourne in the fact it’s set around a bay, and the people are quirky as! And I love that. They make me look subtle.

There are some names on the line-up you haven’t worked with on Neighbours, yet you all shared a similar experience…

I’ve had the pleasure of the beautiful Kym Valentine on the Birmingham show earlier this year. Everybody has different experiences of course, and Kym specifically because she was such a youngster when she joined. A lot of the similarities are whether you’re going through the same life events at the same point. I was probably only 22 when I first got in there, and by the time I was in as a regular, I was probably 24. I wasn’t a kid. I’d gone to drama school and done all those sorts of things. I wasn’t learning on the job in the same way Ryan [Moloney] did at 15 and Kym at 16. It is a shared experience but if you’re a young person going through that it’s a more difficult journey than if you’re a bit more formed by the time you’re hit with the fame thing. It’s a lot when you’re in your early 20s so I don’t know how difficult it must have been for them. We were all making an incredibly large amount of drama in a short time with a huge amount of lines to learn and things constantly moving. You feel like a very small cog in a very big machine. All of that is a shared experience.

I’ve never met Dan [Paris], but I just had a conversation with a friend of mine who went to school with him in Western Australia – which is so far away that I don’t consider it Australia in reality. It’s two time zones and a four-hour flight away. We’re going to have a fantastic group of people for this tour. It’s going to be a really, really fun group to be on a bus with.

And we know this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Melanie in Erinsborough… would you return full-time or is now a chance for you to explore other projects?

I’d return full-time in a heartbeat. Even though I love exploring new projects, I think now the way Neighbours moves, everybody is doing less. So if you do go back full-time, it’s only 30 weeks a year so you can still do other things. It’s incredibly engrossing doing something like Neighbours.

Que será, será, whatever will be, will be. Who knows the way it will go? Who knows if it will continue to be made after April? At this moment we don’t know any of those things. It’s a different kind of world, you don’t get those long contracts now so that’s going to be the same for the actors, crews and shows. A short-term scenario. But I would love to come back because I love playing that character and working there.

I love all the people that work there and I miss their faces.

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