Shortly after graduating from the National Theatre in late 1984, Blanche was cast as Julie Robinson in the soap opera Neighbours, which began airing in March 1985.
Upon her return to Australia, she was cast as Senior Detective Chris Faithful in the second season of the ABC police drama Phoenix.
"[2] The following year, she appeared alongside Bill Hunter and David Cameron in the nine-part ABC drama series The Keepers.
[6] Marie McNamara of The Age praised Blanche for her performance,[8] while a reporter for the Aberdeen Press and Journal said she made Julie "one of the most popular characters in the Australian soap.
[9] Following her departure from Neighbours, Blanche worked at the St Martin's Theatre in Melbourne and had a guest role in an episode of The Flying Doctors.
[1] In 1988, she re-joined the main cast of The Flying Doctors as radiographer Paula Patterson, the younger sister of pilot Sam, played by Blanche's former Neighbours co-star Peter O'Brien.
[11] Alongside her Flying Doctors co-star Liz Burch and singer Neil Finn, Blanche appeared in Nine Network's A Chance for the Children programme in 1990, which highlighted the need for water, health care and education in third world countries.
[11] As Col'n Carpenter was the first comedy Blanche had worked on, she had to learn new acting skills, and she felt that she picked up a lot from her co-stars Kim Gyngell and Monica Maughan.
[14] Blanche later felt that working on both productions simultaneously made her lose respect for her job because of the scheduling, so she decided to go overseas to study acting in order to stay challenged.
[15] She studied acting at the HB Studio and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, and chose not to attend auditions or seek roles.
[3] Phoenix was filmed over 13 weeks, which suited Blanche, who preferred not to stay with a show for too long, and aired in early 1993.
[23] In 2001, she won the Young Director of the Year Award at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for her work on a commercial for Australian feminine hygiene company Cottons.