Family and Friends (Australian TV series) Family and Friends (Australian TV series) Family and Friends is a short-lived Australian television soap opera debuted on 7 February 1990. The series was intended to be the Nine Network's response to the already successful soaps on the rival channels - "Neighbours" and "E Street" on the Network Ten and "Home and Away" on the Seven Network. Set in a suburban community the series focused on two families - the Chandler and the Italian-Australian Rossi families - who were linked by a long-standing vendetta stemming from an accidental death in the 1950s. Old enmities were renewed by the Romeo-and-Juliet style
The Sitcom Trials Fountain, Carrie Quinlan, Michelle Farr, Marc Blake and Tom Price.. Reviews for the show have ranged from the Leicester Mercury's "We were screaming with laughter... move over Friends", through the London Evening Standard's "We're not watching stand-up, we're watching comedy history", to Chortle's "The Sitcom Trials are performing a vital service". There was also "Metro"'s notorious review of the 2002 Edinburgh Fringe show: "I would happily have voted to have my own eyes gouged out with hot spoons rather than endure another moment." Declan Hill and Simon Wright, who produced the Sitcom Trials in 2007 and 2009 launched a similar