To Think 'The Archers' Should Be Put Out of Its Misery?

[JoffreyBaratheon]

Ack. I just caught a minute of it tonight. It's still as awful as I remember. Turned it off as silence is preferable.

60 (or a million, whatever it is) years ago when it started, it was probably vaguely credible. But now you'd have to be a millionaire to be a farmer. And who cares about the traumas of rich businessmen?

Last time heard it was a couple of years ago when a character who was a pensioner when I was a child (and I'm in my 50s) was shagging a cockney half her age. It was actually creepy and weird.

Why do people still listen to it? (if they do?) Surely it costs a fortune - all those actors on a permanent wage packet... I was on a train in the same carriage as one of them once, and my god, did she love herself. She was shouting loudly into her phone for the whole journey on her mobile - just in case she wasn't centre of attention, for once.

My husband used to listen to it and he is a townie. (So an element of fantasy maybe?) Ditto my dad, also a city boy. I grew up in the country and have always thought it a load of self indulgent bullocks. It's so middle class and such tosh.

So AIBU to think it's time to concrete over the farm, build a nice council estate, and move on?

[BoreOfWhabylon]

YABU.

But I really really want to know who the gobby actor on the train was

PS They are paid per episode, not on any salary/retainer

[LikeDylanInTheMovies]

Get. tae. fuck.

[LikeDylanInTheMovies]

A mere YABU is insufficient to express just how wrong your viewpoint is.

[HairyWorm]

YABVVVVVVU!!

I've struggled to listen recently due to the Domestic Abuse storyline but I'm back on track now.

[x2boys]

I used to listen to it on a Sunday morning omnibus when I was a child up.to.being about 19 I haven't listened to.it in yrs but apparently the latest story line is very good so might start listening to it again for what it's worth last time I listened to it David and Ruth were newly weds and clarry and her husband had toddlers

[BlueJug]

I used to listen but it got sillier and sillier. Agree about self important actors on permanent wages no matter how bad they are. I know one too - awful.

It seems like a little club all paid for by the license payers - a little team of luvvies all telling each other how great they are. Apparently this storyline is good - but I haven't listened.

[TheDuchessOfArbroathsHat]

Just that ghastly theme tune is enough to have me reaching for the radio remote like a woman possessed! YANBU. And all the extra coverage because of the latest storyline has only served to confirm my opinion that EastEnders is bad enough on the bloody telly so why would you need it on the radio as well.

[allegretto]

X2boys - that's about when I started listening properly although it's always been on in our house! OP - yabu!

[allegretto]

And you are being doubly unreasonable to complain about the cost - radio is much cheaper to make than tv!

[CockacidalManiac]

God, yes. I leap for the radio when the theme comes on. The acting is truly shit, the stories boring.

[loobylou10]

If you reach for the radio when the theme tune comes on how do you know the acting is shit and the stories are boring - I love it so yabvvvu OP.

[DoSomethingKirsty]

If you don't like it don't listen - I can't stand reality tv, but appreciate that others do. Many actors behave like prats, it's not limited to those in The Archers.

The current storyline is not one of my favourites, but has raised over 100K for Refuge - somebody must be listening.

[CalpolOnToast]

My husband listened to it in an MRI machine earlier, he says he blocked it out!

I like it in principle but at the moment I don't want to listen to little kids being emotionally abused and a mother who seems likely to have her baby taken away at birth.

[LyndaNotLinda]

The actors aren't on permanent wages - they only get paid for the episodes they appear in. Most of them have other jobs.

[GlomOfNit]

That's right - Emma Grundy, for instance, is in the new tie-in Star Wars franchse film out at Christmas.

OP YABVVU. It is 13 minutes out of your life, if you can't bear to switch the radio off. It's cheap to produce and far far more people love it than hate it, so off you merrily trot.

[mummytime]

YABU

Don't listen if you don't want to. There is no law about listening to Radio 4.

The actors are not on permanent wages. They get paid for what they do, and that can be pretty infrequent. Even the main characters can have weeks without being "in it". They all have other jobs, and some of them have "proper jobs", eg. as well as actors, one is a GP, another an academic etc.

I haven't watched East Enders for nearly 20 years, but I'm not going to say they should stop making it. Although having lived in the East End I could say it is about as realistic as you say the Archer's is to country life (actually I would say EE is far less realistic and doesn't even claim to be).

[JoffreyBaratheon]

I just hear the first note of the music and I'm switching off. It's like a kneejerk reaction, now.

So yes I happily switch off. But I do think it's a massive waste of money and can't for a second be 'cheap radio' as the same amount of airtime could be used on yet another programme about the social life of the dung beetle, or whatever, and that would cost a fraction of the price...

Think what I really loathe is how middle class and twee it is. That bloody music starts though and I have to switch the radio off before I hear the first whiney voice.

I had to listen to the omnibus as a kid, and sometimes caught it because my husband used to listen to it - and the other thing I loathed about it was the way it sneered at ordinary people - Eddie and Clarrie were like comic characters everyone looked down on. So not just its relentless Islington-ness but also the way it belittled working class people. Not sure if it still does but am guessing it can't be much better.

The woman on the train was around the same time as Dom Joly used to do that act with the man shrieking into the giant mobile - maybe he too was stuck on a train with her.

[CaptainAnkles]

The John Finnemore sketches about accidentally hearing a bit of the Archers are really funny though

[DoSomethingKirsty]

Well turn off then - nobody is making you listen.

[DoSomethingKirsty]

Flog It
Eastenders
The Apprentice
Five Star Babies
Match of the Day

Just a few of the BBC shows that I think are absolutely dire, but that is my opinion, others must like them for them to be worth making.

[Scholes34]

Just don't listen, OP, and leave it to those of us who like it. The current storyline has been building up for a very long time, and anyone who's been with it along the way sees it from a different view point to those who have "just caught a minute of it".

[CockacidalManiac]

Think what I really loathe is how middle class and twee it is. That bloody music starts though and I have to switch the radio off before I hear the first whiney voice.

I had to listen to the omnibus as a kid, and sometimes caught it because my husband used to listen to it - and the other thing I loathed about it was the way it sneered at ordinary people - Eddie and Clarrie were like comic characters everyone looked down on. So not just its relentless Islington-ness but also the way it belittled working class people. Not sure if it still does but am guessing it can't be much better.

That's it in a nutshell. Tony Hancock was taking the piss out of it 60 years ago, and it's exactly the same now.

[infife]

I can't stand it. Admittedly I've not listened for ages as I turn it off the second I hear the theme tune.

I grew up in the country and nobody spoke with the accents portrayed. Last time I listened, the plebs sounded like peasants and the rich people like snobs. It all felt very contrived. Like how London imagines rural communities.

[CockacidalManiac]

It's set about 15 miles from where I live. It might as well be another planet.

[CockacidalManiac]

I wonder how much of the R4 listenership have a Pavlovian response to that fucking theme tune.