Home and Away

Home and Away is a weeknightly half-hour television soap opera produced in Australia. It is shown on the Seven network in Australia and is exported to many countries, most notably the United Kingdom, where it briefly became the subject of a bidding war between ITV and Channel 5. It has run since January 1988 and is still in production.

It features the travails of the inhabitants of a fictional small coastal town in New South Wales called Summer Bay, concentrating on the family occupying and running the local caravan park who typically foster several teenagers. Like Neighbours, the other Australian half-hour daily soap, it attracts a mainly teenage audience and features a constantly-rotating teenage cast with several older actors who tend to last considerably longer.

Actors Kate Ritchie and Ray Meagher have been with the show continuously since the first episode, the longest such run in Australian television history. Ritchie was aged nine and playing a character a year younger when the show began filming in late 1987. Her character is now a teacher at the local high school, and became Principal when Norman Coburn's character, the previous principal and fellow original cast member left the show.