Yes, it’s that time again: Welcome to the 2024 Back to the Bay Home and Away Most Popular Character poll!
- Posted on 10 December, 2024
Yes, it’s that time again: Welcome to the 2024 Back to the Bay Home and Away Most Popular Character poll!
And after we’ve weeded out all the votes by people who didn’t read the small print, including several for one-time Coronation Street shopkeeper Alf Roberts (getting mixed up with Alf Stewart since 1988!), we start with those who got one or two points and are thus no-one’s favourite character:
167. Alan Fisher (2 points)
Played by Simon Kay
Son of Donald Fisher, who arrived in town in the show’s first year with a brain aneurysm that ultimately killed him. It was the first of many traumas Donald suffered during his time on the show and it seemed like every time he had a flashback to Alan dying.
=167 Alex Neilson (2 points)
Played by Zoe Ventoura
Alex was in the Top 80 last time round, making this the biggest fall in terms of places for anyone in both polls. Her relationship with Willow, nearly five years ago now, was the show’s last attempt at an LGBT relationship, which is probably the main reason why she’s here.
=167 Andy Barrett (2 points)
Played by Tai Hara
Dropping one point from last time, Andy is still more popular than you’d expect considering last we heard he’s serving a stretch for murder somewhere. Older brother of Josh and occasional associate of the Braxtons, Andy hung around trying to be likeable but could never really live down that moral event horizon early in his tenure.
=167 Beth Hunter (2 points)
Played by Clarissa House
The mother of the largely forgotten Hunter clan, who married Rhys Sutherland only to have him abruptly go back to his first wife after a few months. Hung around long enough to get a second blended family with Tony Holden before dying off screen.
=167 Brad Cooper (2 points)
Played by Bruce Samazan
In late 1996, that nice Mark Gottlieb from Neighbours popped up in Home and Away as Chloe’s counsellor. Who dated her. And then turned out to be a serial rapist. Who’d raped her. And lost a leg. The 90s could be weird sometimes.
=167 Dexter Walker (2 points)
Played by Tom Green & Charles Cottier
Dexter was only a couple of points below Alex Neilson last time round but doesn’t seem to be in the public consciousness as much as he was when he and April were the golden couple. The socially awkward Walker offspring suffered a brain injury and didn’t seem that different.
=167 Karen Dean (2 points)
Played by Belinda Jarrett
Karen missed out on one of my write-ups last time because of an administrative error that saw Karen Dean confused with Dean’s Mum Karen so here goes: She was Blake’s sister who came in as a sweet little girl and left as a wild child with a penchant for bad boys. Twice.
=167 Mardi O’Kane (2 points)
Played by Kelly Cawley
The mother of one of Rachel McGregor’s friends who acted as a sort-of-love interest for Jesse for a bit and saved Rachel from choking. She appeared for three weeks in 1998. How did she suddenly pop into someone’s head?!
=167 Michael Ross (2 points)
Played by Dennis Coard
Pippa’s replacement husband who ran the caravan park house in a firm-but-usually-fair manner for the first half of the 90s. He took a while to get his head around the fact that he’d inherited a revolving door of foster children but he got there in the end.
=167 Shauna Bradley (2 points)
Played by Kylie Watson
Ailsa’s daughter, a fact that no-one, including the pair of them, was aware of until about six months before Ailsa died. She hung around for some months afterwards, got run out of town for going after Sally’s boyfriend, then came back the next year to run off with someone else’s boyfriend.
=167 Stevie Marlow (2 points)
Played by Catherine Van Davies
An apparently famous actress who hung around Summer Bay for a bit this year while Cash protected her from her stalker. He failed utterly and she got tragically murdered. How does the guy still get work?
=167 Valerie Beaumont (2 points)
Played by Courtney Clarke
A messed up drug-addicted youngster with a tragic past, Valerie arrived in Summer Bay this year as the latest person to get that Summer Bay magic that will help her turn her life around. Or get rather coldly kicked out with us never learning her fate. One of the two.
179. Brad Armstrong (1 point)
Played by Chris Sadrinna
Mainly famous for not being Flynn, Brad was engaged to Sally for a bit before getting left at the altar. He did at least get a happy ending caring for his newly-discovered half-sister, which was probably the start of a trend thinking about it.
179= Carl Hayes (1 point)
Played by Matthew Holmes
This year’s UK finale ended with Carl floating face down in a swimming pool, a fact which probably didn’t upset many people. Abusive father of Tane’s new protégé Perri, Carl has the distinction of being the lowest ranked character to appear this year. But hey, he got more votes than the Allen siblings!
179= Eloise Page (1 point)
Played by Darcey Wilson
Younger sister of Matt Page, Ellie flitted in and out of the show during his first year before finally moving in with him near the end of his stint to give him a happy ending with a makeshift family and have a BFF thing going with fellow newly arrived younger sister Raffy.
179= Emma Jackson (1 point)
Played by Dannii Minogue
Someone probably thought “Hey, you know how Neighbours got famous by hiring Kylie Minogue? Let’s hire her sister!” To be fair, Emma was a pretty decent, if rather short-lived character, who made an overnight transition from surly punk to smiling fairy tale princess. Left to be an air stewardess.
179= Freya Duric (1 point)
Played by Sophie Hensser
Yep, she’s still here. Freya appeared for two weeks in 2009, a snarky drug dealer who copped off with Xavier, Hugo and, um, Nicole. And has been in every poll since in what’s basically a running gag now.
179= Jai Fernandez (1 point)
Played by Jordan Rodrigues
Reclaiming his position as Most Popular Jai from Dean’s pre-teen son, Jai was one of those attempts to keep the fostering angle going by moving in with Miles shortly after he took over the caravan park. He stuck around for a year and a half, dated Annie and, um, did some other stuff.
179= Jazz Curtis (1 point)
Played by Rachel Gordon
Drew’s mother continues to be oddly popular considering many of the teen group she interacted with seem to have dropped out of the polls. Maybe it’s because she was a bit more three-dimensional than most Bad Mother characters. But the Summer Bay cabal all seemed to hate her anyway.
179= Jude Lawson (1 point)
Played by Ben Steel
Well, here’s a coincidence. The older brother of the more memorable Noah was engaged to Shauna above, then broke up with her when she went after Flynn, then got engaged to someone else, then left her for Shauna who he headed off into the sunset with. Sometimes you have to take your happy endings where you can.
179= Louise Scott (1 point)
Played by Elaine Hudson
The semi-regular social worker of the early 90s, Louise is probably most notable for convincing Bobby to take in new tween character Sam, who would end up outlasting both of them. She also convinced Pippa to take in Tracey Turner. Who didn’t.
179= Mason Morgan (1 point)
Played by Orpheus Pledger
The youngest of the original group of Morgan siblings, Mason’s ladies’ man attitude (in his head, if nowhere else) meant some people took their time to warm to him. He made the big mistake of choosing a work placement at the local hospital instead of one in the outback, forgetting terrible things tend to happen to the locals, especially once every 230 episodes.
179= Natalie Nash (1 point)
Played by Angelica La Bozzetta & Antoinette Byron
Nice to see Natalie get a point. She got reinvented and recast after a year or so from a sporty working mum to an earth mother Pippa substitute, but unfortunately is mostly remembered for her odd exit storyline where we suddenly learned she’d had an affair when we weren’t looking.
179= Olivia Fraser-Richards (1 point)
Played by Raechelle Banno
Olivia’s just hanging onto the outer fringes of the poll. It probably seemed like a good idea on paper to bring back the daughter of 90s character Chloe and move her in with Irene. In practice, she just acted like a random teenager who’d never been in Summer Bay before, while giving away the fact Irene had been doing this for over a generation.
Yes, it’s that time again: Welcome to the 2024 Back to the Bay Home and Away Most Popular Character poll! And after we’ve weeded out all the votes by people who didn’t read the small print, including several for one-time Coronation Street shopkeeper Alf Roberts (getting mixed up with Alf Stewart since 1988!), we start with those…