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Interviews > Luke Devenish

This week sees the well-publicised 'Back to Basics' relaunch of Neighbours, with a new theme tune and titles, new characters and, to kick it all off, a wedding. Here, Supervising Story Editor Luke Devenish chats to us about this time of change, and what the future holds for the Neighbours...

In our last interview, you mentioned your dislike for the brush script logo. Are you glad that it has gone? What are your views on the new titles and theme overall?
Vale the old brush script logo. I couldn't be happier to see it dead and buried. Not a moment too soon for an update there. I love the new look titles and theme song. Big ticks from me for both of them.

Can you explain what the current 'back to basics' revamp entails, and why you think it was needed?
I'm not quite sure who coined this little phrase, but my interpretation of 'back to basics' is that the show is placing a greater emphasis on the sorts of storylines we call 'heartland'. Stories about the smaller things in life, the everyday - derived from the families and friendships of the street. I'm not sure that we ever stopped doing these stories in recent years, but we did do less of them than in our earlier periods, it's true. But now we're doing more. I've talked in the past about the importance we place on audience research - and of the weird phenomena of people on feedback forums always being about six to nine months ahead in their opinions expressed compared to opinions expressed by our slightly less passionate viewers. The most recent lot of research we did at the beginning of this year finally brought the two types of viewers into line. What some of you in forum-land had been saying for a while was at last what some of Joe Public were saying too. Trust me, I cheered when this happened, because it meant that at last we had a consistency of opinion. This was most definitely not the case previously. So, armed with all this useful info, we began re-tooling certain elements. The forum feedback since then has been, in the main, quite positive, so I'm feeling hopeful that we might have got it right.

The axing of the remaining Timmins family members was met with a largely negative reception from fans. Can you explain the reasons behind this decision?
No, I can't. But if it's any consolation, I sobbed louder and longer at their departure than anyone. But all good things come to an end, I guess.

The introduction of the Parkers has had a very positive response from viewers thus far. How much work went into creating the new family? And are you pleased with how they're working onscreen?
We're thrilled that the Parkers have gone down so well already - that's wonderful news. Considerable thought went into them and much consultation with our friends at Network Ten especially. I'm loving them all on screen and am especially enamoured of Bridget. And Pouch!

In some way or another, every family on Ramsay Street is linked, be it through a current character or a past one. Do you think these strong links and clearly defined family groups are part of what the show has been missing over the past year or two?
Long-running soaps are ALWAYS about families, and we're always at our best when we've got solid family units to play with. But one of our curses is that we can't hold on to our families forever because the actors always start wanting to leave in order to pursue new horizons. Then we're faced with families that rapidly shrink (the Scullys), or families that take on additional members through other means (take a bow, Kinski-Kennedys). So, yes, the show has perhaps been missing a strong sense of 'family' for the last couple of years, but this was rather more due to circumstance than design, I can assure you.