The History of Negbores

Negbores was written and created by Andrew Paul Bowden, a male of British origin. He arrived in Australia in 1977 with his eighth wife, Margoyt Fontayn.

The couple had decided to leave England after Margoyt found out that the student union of some scanky northern university's, had named a ballroom after her. Indeed, Bowden's fourth wife Vein Tempest had also suffered at the hands of the students at the same university, and died of shock shortly after seeing that her ballroom was in reality a tiny room with nothing but a small stage and a bar in it.

From Soap, to Kids

Andrew had been a script writer on the popular Grandbladder Television soap opera Corination-Chicken Street, a key programme of the EyeTV network in Britain.

Upon his arrival in Australia he sought work writing for a number of the Aussie soap operas but did not succeed. After many months of unemployment, Andrew was employed working on the Red Alan children's TV program, where he wrote replies to letters from the viewers.

"He was the best letter writer we've ever had... EVER!" said Lewis Silver, Editor of Red Alan, who later went on to work for Virgin Records creating titles for compilation albums.

A New Soap For Aussie Land

Despite his setbacks, Andrew was not deterred and in his spare time, wrote and created a soap opera for Australian TV giant HeyBC called Smeldarado. Based in a luxury seaside resort in New Zealand, only the pilot episode was ever made owing to the set being destroyed by a herd of manic sheep.

Despite these setbacks, Andrew's biggest break was still to come. In 1990, Andrew quit Red Alan to concentrate on Neighbours, Channel 79's latest venture in the world of antipodian soap operas.

The soap was short lived after it was discovered that there was already a soap opera called Neighbours. Channel 79 promptly sacked Bowden and axed the show.

A Show Is Born

However, former news reader turned TV producer John Munday was inspired and took up the show, selling it to the Home Service channel. It was renamed Neggybours to avoid confusion with it's counterpart. Even this name was short lived - the show metamorphasised into Negbours and finally, following a High Court writ from the makers of Neighbours, the show became Negbores.

Broadcast on a weekly basis, the original run was in Spring 1997 for 13 episodes. Following the collapse of Home Service Channel, Negbores was sent into exile, although the original episodes have been continuously repeated on repeats channel Aussie Gold.

Left unemployed, Andrew forged strong connections with John Munday Television, the company which helped bring Negbores to the masses and in 1999, John Munday himself set up a TV station just to get Negbores back on air. Andrew was commissioned to write and make six more episodes, which finally made it on air in Spring 2000. The final episode of series two, left a major cliffhanger.

The shows' future is again unclear - there are no immediate plans for a third series and it has been rumoured that there never will be. The guiding force behind the show is said to be reluctant to make anymore, having wrapped up many of the shows loose ends. However with series two saw the show get its biggest ever ratings and its popularity may be impossible to quosh.

John Munday Productions

John Munday Productions was formed in 1988 by former EBC newsreader John Munday. John had worked on the EBC's North West Tomorrow program with Stuart Ball, in the North West of England. Following the resignation of Stuart from the program, John's role declined and he eventually left to seek his fortune in the promised land. However, he was never promised that he would get to the promised land, and indeed didn't get there. He was pushed out of the plane in Sydney.

Having saved up 10.50 he was able to buy out a small TV production company, Megaproductions, and renamed it. He launched the popular quiz show Going For Silver and created many soap operas, featuring bad actors, dodgy scripts and wobbly sets. The company still makes programmes today is run out of a garden shed in the back of John's Garden.

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