{"id":181066,"date":"2025-12-08T13:14:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T13:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/181066\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T13:14:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T13:14:14","slug":"neighbours-boss-reveals-scrapped-return-plot-in-controversial-2025-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/181066\/","title":{"rendered":"Neighbours boss reveals scrapped return plot in controversial 2025 story"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s the final week of Neighbours (for the second time), and the soap’s boss has been reflecting on the Amazon era of the show and bringing things to a conclusion once again. In doing so, he revealed that one of 2025’s most controversial storylines for the show had a return for one classic character planned, but it sadly didn’t go ahead.<\/p>\n

This year saw Holly Hoyland and Andrew Rodwell embark on a clandestine affair, which riled up fans not only because they liked both characters in the relationships they were in, but they was also a 20ish-year age gap between them.<\/p>\n

It all blew up when Andrew confessed to the affair last month<\/a>, and his wife Wendy turned ruthless<\/a>. Holly, facing a lot of judgement from people and pregnant with Andrew’s baby, called up her mum Izzy<\/a> to see if she could go stay with her, but Izzy wasn’t exactly supportive.<\/p>\n

But as Herbison told Radio Times<\/a>, there was hope that Izzy would do a lot more than pick up the phone.<\/p>\n

“I do regret we were unable to secure Natalie Bassingthwaighte to reprise her role as Izzy,” he said. “There was a return planned but the story arc still played without it.”<\/p>\n

\"Alan<\/p>\n

FremantleMedia Ltd\/\/ELLEMEN<\/p>\n

Related: Best streaming services in 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, Izzy was quite the homewrecker herself back in the day. She famously played a role in breaking up Karl and Susan Kennedy’s marriage over 20 years ago (with Karl being Holly’s father) so her return would have added more texture to the recent storyline.<\/p>\n

Still, Herbison is really pleased with the storyline, stating that he “loved the way Holly and Andrew’s affair dovetailed into Cara and Greg’s story”.<\/p>\n

When asked if he was worried about the audience reception to Holly and Andrew’s affair, he replied: “No more than I would be for any controversial story. Soaps aren’t meant to please audiences all the time, you have to take risks.<\/p>\n

“Characters need to be flawed and there has to be conflict, drama and shocks along the way. If there’s not, you are rightly criticised for being boring and predictable.”<\/p>\n

\"natalie<\/p>\n

Channel 5<\/p>\n

Related: Neighbours releases final ever spoilers \u2013 as one character hopes to save Ramsay Street<\/a> <\/p>\n

“Lucinda Armstrong-Hall did an incredible job bringing Holly back to life in the reboot, complete with the character’s glorious imperfections,” he continued. “I loved how she was a chip off the Izzy block and trying to be herself, yet her worst instincts kept getting the better of her.<\/p>\n

“We had the Andrew affair storyline planned a while ago and started to chip away at Holly’s self-esteem to get her in the right emotional place. The story was meant to launch in the 40th anniversary week but we had to delay it. Holly’s a great soap character \u2013 trouble finds her and Lucinda played the role in a very real, multi-dimensional way.”<\/p>\n

Neighbours’ last episode drops this Thursday on Prime Video<\/a> in the UK and US. In Australia, the show airs from Mondays to Thursdays at 4pm on Channel 10, with a 6.30pm repeat screening on 10 Peach Comedy.<\/p>\n

Read more Neighbours coverage on our dedicated homepage<\/a><\/p>\n

The new edition of Living Legends, celebrating music icon Dolly Parton, is here! Buy Dolly at 80 in newsagents or online<\/a>, priced at just \u00a38.99.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s the final week of Neighbours (for the second time), and the soap’s boss has been reflecting on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[1105,98476,1107,93,61,60,1135,98475,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-181066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-content-type-news","9":"tag-contentid-d30b3a14-ba67-497b-83ce-4a7d62cdfe6d","10":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-locale-gb","15":"tag-shorttitle-neighbours-boss-reveals-scrapped-return-plot","16":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}