Neighbours fades to black with an all-star cast and an all-in Guy Pearce performance

Kylie and Jason, Natalie Imbruglia and Holly Valance, Guy Pearce and his leather jacket – Neighbours may be coming to an end due to declining audiences in the UK but goodness it goes out with an all-star bang.

The Australian soap never had quite the cachet in Ireland as in Britain (here Home and Away was Aussie tea-time watch of choice). Yet for sheer A-lister pizazz, the finale – airing on the UK’s Channel 5 – nonetheless claims all the bragging rights.

It is, in fact, two finales in one. In one universe, the regular show winds down with the residents of Ramsay Street having decided they’re moving out en masse (before changing their minds at the final moment). And then there is the interstellar sign-off, in which the many, many future A-listers who cut their teeth on Neighbours pop around to say hello. And then, goodbye.

It is rather a crew. Margot Robbie manifests via video message to say Neighbours was one of the happiest times of her life. In theory, she is playing her character Donna – but Robbie, in an expensive hotel somewhere, kicks down the fourth wall and speaks from the heart about her love for the series.

There’s also a weird cutaway to Imbruglia and Valance, whose characters bump into one another while perusing the Ramsay Street Facebook page. What are the odds?

However, the celebrity heart of the episode is a three-hander between Guy Pearce and Kylie and Jason, all of whom were in Ramsay Street together in the late 1980s. Kylie and Jason, as ever-green love-birds Charlene and Scott, are a slightly blink and they’re gone.

They arrive in a green Mini, to the strains of Especially For You (that fourth wall is pretty wobbly even before Robbie knocks it over) and then run about taking in all the sights – all while Kylie seems to go out of her way to deliver as little dialogue as possible.

But Pearce goes all in. His character Mike is back, in a leather jacket, hair slicked back, to reconnect with old flame “Plain Jane”. Neighbours evidently has a special place in Pearce’s heart: he commits entirely to the part and never acts as if he’s slumming it or doing Ramsay Street a favour.

Neighbours Stefan Dennis Annie Jones, Geoff Paine, Guy Pearce, Lucinda Cowden, Ian Smith and Paul Keane. Neighbours has closed out its final moments with emotional reunions, a joyful wedding and a nostalgic tribute to past and present stars (Fremantle/Channel 5/PA)

The curtain comes down with Mike and Jane reunited, and Scott and Charlene clinking champagne flutes. And even you couldn’t tell Ramsay Street from Gordon Ramsay – I’m sure a lot of Irish people fall into that category – it’s hard not to feel a pin-prick of emotion as the theme tune comes in and Australia’s greatest contribution to soap opera fades to black.