YOURS FAITHFULLY

Inside Soap, Issue 138, 16-29 October 1999

Susan passes over an opportunity to give Dr Karl a taste of his own medicine ...

After weeks of moping around worrying about what Karl has or hasn't been up to with now-departed Sarah Beaumont, the spring returns to Susan Kennedy' s step this fortnight when her old boyfriend Martin Chester treats her to a romantic meal.

"Karl knows Martin's taking Susan to dinner but he doesn't think she would be capable of any kind of misconduct," says Jackie Woodburne, who plays her. "Susan is very attracted to Martin, but she wouldn't be aware of it if her marriage was more solid and she wasn't feeling so unloved.

"She's tempted to have a fling but ultimately she wants her marriage to survive. Despite Karl's affair, she loves him very much. They just need to work through their problems."

Jackie is old friends with actor Gil Tucker, who plays Martin. "We worked together on a drama called Cop Shop 13 years ago, and we had a lot of fun catching up," she explains. "I've seen Gil socially on and off since then, and I think the fact we' re quite familiar with each other helped when it came to playing ex-lovers."

Another close friend of Jackie's is former Home and Away star Debra Lawrance, who quit the role of Pippa Ross last year "We've been mates for donkey's years," says the 43-year-old actress. "We met in 1982 through a mutual friend and used to share a flat together in Sydney as well as work with each other on Prisoner,"

Jackie says she and Debra never envisaged themselves playing mothers prior to winning the parts of two of Australia's most-loved matriarchs. " It was quite strange," she laughs.

"When Debra was in Home and Away and I was in Neighbours we used to laugh and say, "How did this happen? How did we get these older children?"

But despite the occasional pang of envy when she has an early- morning start for Neighbours, Jackie has no plans to follow Debra's example and quit soap. "The only time it crosses my mind is when the alarm goes off at five o'clock in the morning," she says. "I'm very happy to be working, Not many people to spend their working lives doing something they love."

"I'm still really enjoying working on Neighbours, I consider myself lucky to be working with such lovely people."

Annette Dasey