The Archers

Gosh Rosycheeks - Have you got a death wish ? Criticising the Archers ? They’ll be building the bonfire and sharpening the stakes ! You’ll see a mob coming down your road like when they storm the castle in Beauty and the Beast ?
Everyone knows you can’t slag off that particular programme - it’s like throwing an egg at a statue of Mother Theresa.

And I completely agree with you ?

Tee hee ?

Yes, fed up with Alice now. More fed up that we have been robbed of two episodes a week.

Also I though Fallon didn't sound like Fallon last night....disgruntled!

Not only are we down to just 4 episodes a week but each episode has been reduced to just 12 minutes. I blame Brexit.

I was just thinking what a good actress Alice is, I was never a great fan of Alice but she has been very good in this SL. I found the scenes with Jazzer and Tracey and the bike excruciating.

I grew up with The Archers, listened avidly almost all my adult life and even attended the annual Academic Archers meets. Howver, I found the lockdown soliloquies excrutiatingly awful, stopped listening and haven't returned.

I need a potted catch up. What has happened to Tom and his annoying juice-queen wife? Helen and Karate Kid? Kate and the Vet? The Geordie chatterbox? The Rewilding Three. Are Jill and Peggy still alive? Is Shula the vicar now or is it still Bunter? So many questions ...

I want to know where Usha disappeared to. Has she run away with Kathy and Jamie Perks? What happened to Tom Archers sausages? His grandmother invested a lot of money in those
awaits thread on GN "I gave my grandson ££££s for his business enterprise and he's vanished----with the money. What should I do?"

Galaxy

I was just thinking what a good actress Alice is, I was never a great fan of Alice but she has been very good in this SL. I found the scenes with Jazzer and Tracey and the bike excruciating.

I agree Galaxy; a great bit of acting. As always a well-written storyline. I have no doubt this will be spread over time as it has since the first inkling of the problem until now. It's also showing just how many people are affected by the fallout of alcoholism.

Chewbacca

I want to know where Usha disappeared to. Has she run away with Kathy and Jamie Perks? What happened to Tom Archers sausages? His grandmother invested a lot of money in those
--awaits thread on GN "I gave my grandson ££££s for his business enterprise and he's vanished----with the money. What should I do?"--

Yes Chewbacca, where is Usha? Where was she during that daft story about Ed and Emma buying or not buying the one "affordable" house on the new development. Emma was talking total gibberish that bore little relationship to how the house buying process works - no solicitor in sight.

Jamie Perks, I can answer. He is part of a covert insurgency group hiding out in the Hassett Hills surviving on rations that the invisible and silent Kathy Perks sneaks out from the Grey Gables kitchen ... which last time I listened had exploded and almost deaded Lynda Snell ... summat to do with Philip Moss and modern slavery.

You might like this from the 2018 AA conference. The film quality is poor and the talk sometimes lost in the audience laughter but it was clever and very funny!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzev39dwN0E

Apologies if this is derailing but Alice has long annoyed me sober or drunk. Wasn't she supposed to be an aereonautical engineer? The writers turned her into someone as vapid as her vegan but not-vegan sister, Kate. I blame Sean O'Connor.

Loved that Flexagon! It was brilliantly done! Ed Grundy and Jazza as guerrilla fighters and Peggy in a Displacement Camp should have been scripted instead of the lock down soliloquies!

Sorry I put Gazza instead of Jazzer.?‍♀️

I think the scriptwriters dont really know what to do with ambitious bright women, same with Phoebe.

I’m more concerned about Adam and Ian, but bored with Lee and his figures, but hope we have heard the end of Kyle. Why do they keep on introducing peripheral characters who we have no interest in? Bring back TA with full episodes and better scripts! ( sorry, recordings of real life?)

I did write to complain to the BBC recently but received a lot of platitudes about the virus. This was just not a short while ago, not last year.

All that hype about Phoebe going to Oxbridge and she's running a camp site. As for poor Alice and Lily. What price university for Ambridge women?

Glad you enjoyed it Chewbacca. My favourite of that year’s speakers.

I agree Galaxy. The soapy confines of a small, rural parochial community would have little appeal or prospects for an aeronautical engineer or an Oxbridge PPE graduate. As few (meaning none) are allowed to leave or have a life outside the Ambridge electrified fence, writers have to fall back on the tired old angst and relationship tropes usually involving drink, drugs, gambling or having babies.

As for the reweeding, the writers stole the story of the Knepp Castle Esate and tried to plonk it down in the middle of an entirely unsuitable landscape. They had it spearheaded by three people who were writing their plans on the back of a Bull beermat. At the time I switched off, Justin was twirling his Machiavellian moustache trying to take control of the scheme to use it as a greenwash for some deeply dodgy Damara development elsewhere.

Did I read somewhere that brash Brummie wheeler-dealer Vince Casey had got his leg over Elizabeth Pargetter? How the heck did that happen? As unlikely couples go …

eGJ. I long argued (in my head) for an entire new family to be introduced as smallholders instead of cardboard peripherals; Philip, Natasha, Lee, Joy etc. Strange that people can get into Ambridge but anyone with Archers blood can never get out.

Did anyone ever find Dr Locke? Last seen years ago sloping off from a party with Debbie Aldridge and never heard of again (I think Shula and Elizabeth were both mooning over him at the time). Who has been giving the Covid jabs? Jakob the Aspie vet? Jazzer McCreary?

LullyDully. I’d completely forgotten about Lily. Did she ever go back to university or is she still in thrall to the terminally indolent Russ? Or Freddie and his scheme to pedal an energy-generating bicycle to light up an art installation at St Stephens?

I’m off to join the Hassett Hills insurgents plotting to overthrow the writers.

It now looks fairly clear that the BBC is using Covid as an excuse for never reverting to the original six day a week format.
which conveniently fits with an overall reduction in radio 4 drama. I don’ think there have been any announcements from them since last August. Cowardly!
Might write to Gillian Reynolds (snapped up by the i having been dropped as radio reviewer by the Sunday Times) to see if she could investigate.

I can see why making The Archers in the age of Covid creates production problems. Large number of characters, only six ( is it six?) allowed per episode, fragmented story-telling, tag-team writing formula, some very old and therefore vulnerable personnel, actors who have other day jobs. low budget. It's a logistical challenge at the best of times but I do wonder if it's a slow wind down to end.

I wonder what the audience demographic is now? If I could switch off after over 40 years of loyal listening, I wonder how many others have too? It was the Covid soliloquies that finally did for me but I was already clinging on by my fingertips, tired of the increasingly daft storylines.

I know that listening numbers increased during the whole Helen/Rob saga but I'm betting they soon went down again. Does it have any appeal at all for newer listeners? Maybe its had it's time?

I shall be interested to hear whether Roy falls prey to his online 'lady friend'. I only listen to the omnibus, so there may already have been developements!

The storylines are all disjointed now; a plot begins, runs for a few episodes and then just stops with no resolution. Familiar characters have disappeared, whilst new characters suddenly pop up, have a few episodes and then, just as we're getting to know them, they vanish too. The Archers ain't what it used to be!

Yes chewbacker , but it is my only soap, I shall and do miss it.

Kate54

It now looks fairly clear that the BBC is using Covid as an excuse for never reverting to the original six day a week format.
which conveniently fits with an overall reduction in radio 4 drama. I don’ think there have been any announcements from them since last August. Cowardly!
Might write to Gillian Reynolds (snapped up by the i having been dropped as radio reviewer by the Sunday Times) to see if she could investigate.

How can you be sure? When we move forward again, in three years or whatever (rather than the ridiculous "getting back to normal") the BBC may well bring them back - or do something else entirely. The changes are just what they are doing for now.

The problem with the Archers having a story line about an alcoholic is there is rarely a short cut to sobriety and frequently no happy ending so the distress for anyone (friends, family etc) involved can go on for years. Be prepared for a long haul!

I do understand that Alcholism is a long and awful illness its not the story line its the actors that get on my nerves I just turned it off halfway through the other day because it was so unbelievable the way Fallon was with Chris and Chris being all winy and Alice all breathless and suttery I just couldnt take anymore!!!!?

To be fair if I was married to Chris I would have turned to hard drugs let alone alcohol. I am fairly sure the writers are currently producing 5 episodes per week with a view to that starting soon.