1. Love it or hate it, Shortland Street is the longest running home-grown soap opera in New Zealand’s television history.
2. The story centres around the Shortland Street Hospital and follows the lives and loves of the patients and staff, as well as covering topical issues like safe sex, AIDS, child abuse, alcoholism, cot death and suicide.
3. The Street turns ten years old this week (20/05/02-26/05/02). I remember the screening of the first ever episode! I bet some of you do as well J
4. Over the course of their ten years on telly, Shortland Street has screened 2,500 episodes, and 7,200 ad breaks.
5. The characters have been through two earthquakes, eight births, fifteen marriages, eighteen deaths, and nine different heads of the hospital.
6. Over fifiteen evil characters have added spice to the show.
7. The production crew has used 166,400 cottonbuds in make-up, 73,500 reams of paper and has worn out eight hairdryers!
8. Shortland Street said goodbye to Nick Harrison (played by Karl Burnett) this year– the longest serving cast member so far.
9. Rachel McKenna is currently 2nd longest serving character, but will pass Nick's length of time unless she leaves. She joined the show 6 months in and had 1 year off.
10. Around 700,000 New Zealanders watch Shortland Street every weeknight at 7pm!
11. Shortland Street is produced at South Pacific Studios in West Auckland, with exterior shoots taking place at various locations around Auckland. You may have noticed the Skytower popping up in shots occasionally.
12. The cast and crew work in a fast-paced environment - producing five episodes per week in 5 x 10-hour working days. That’s 50 hours per week!
13. At the moment, episodes are being shot seven weeks ahead of the broadcast date. After editing, and other post-production work, the weekly episodes are ready for broadcast 4 weeks before they are aired.
14. Shortland Street has a huge international audience! It is screened in the United Kingdom, Canada, Southern Africa and the Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Ireland, Iceland, Malta as well as other smaller English speaking territories, such as Fiji, Niue, the Cook and Solomon Islands and the Bahamas!
15. Suzy Aitken appeared in the first episode of Shortland Street, way back in 1992 – as a flaky aerobics instructor hot for Chris Warner!
16. Rubicon’s lead singer and guitarist, Paul Reid, plays the character ‘Marshall’.
17. Shortland Street is no longer funded by NZ On Air.
18. Shortland Street has cast many famous kiwis in cameo roles over the years - Paul Holmes, Rachel Hunter, Kim Hill, and the late Angela D'Audney.
19. The first Shortland Street wedding ever, between Gina and Leonard was released on video – my Nana bought me a copy for my birthday that year.
20. Did you know that Shortland Street has spooky karma! Often when something happens on Shortland Street (filmed in advance) it happens at that same time. For example when the nurses had a strike on Shortland Street there was a nurses’ strike happening here, and when there was an earthquake on screen there was an earthquake in Auckland as well!
Kym
1. Love it or hate it, Shortland Street is the longest running home-grown soap opera in New Zealand’s television history.