They're not plucky Tuckers, they're turkey pluckers' sons - Archers festive chat

[PseudoBadger]

:)

[cheminotte]

Blimely only just found new thread and 100 posts already! Agree a pantomime proposal would be lovely.

[PseudoBadger]

Oh no it wouldn't.

:o

[ReallyOverThis]

OK I'll bite! Oh yes it would!

I doubt very much that Tom is oblivious to the idea of marriage - it was him who was so desperate to settle down with Brenda so am pretty sure he'll snap Kirsty up and they'll live happily ever after.

[chocoluvva]

Sorry to be making such a poor little uninteresting comment, but


Squeal

Fab thread.

(MUST get out more).

[ErrolTheDragon]

There was one of those Listening Project segments t'other day - featuring Tom the pig farmer and his wife Kirsty discussing how/whether to introduce their small DS to the realities of meat-eating ... couldn't help wondering if they called their DS Leon deliberately

[ZeroSomeFestiveGameThingy]

Cutted Re narrative devices - I guess they would like us to infer that Rosa is not quite the cold hearted something or other that she has so far appeared to be.

And Shula called her "darling". And Dan got to mention her again...

MrsCB Which brother do you think Clarrie is favouring? I think she tries to be fair but it's complicated by her separate, evolving relationships with the partners and children.

Choc Don't go out. All those twinkly lights will just hypnotise you into buying stuff that will be half price in two weeks. Stay in and help to share out the Ambridge fortunes for the next generation.

Pseudo Careful not to dis Tom - "HE'S BEHIND YOU!"

[BitOutOfPractice]

Oh I think you're right about the proposal

[GypsyFloss]

One of things that galls me about Rosa is she is so rude and dismissive of her father but has no qualms about tripping around the countryside on the scooter she demanded he buy her. That and her nails on a blackboard voice.

[Minimammoth]

We want a proposal, we want a proposal. On one knee with the ring and everything, in the tights. The future is sausage shaped. Ooo err.

[GypsyFloss]

When is it panto time?

[guineapiglet]

Getting very bored now with the WIll and Ed thing, has been going on for too long and very predictable, we need some new storylines urgently. Does George really hate Ed....... yawn...... why doesn't someone just buy him a new puppy and then he will slowly forget about Baz....

Where are Ilona and Anna, surely they would have visited Daryl by now, is there really no-one else to help him? All those jolly big houses in Ambridge, surely someone could make way? Jim? Christine? ePeggy etc etc - this story line is also getting a bit daft.

Like everyone else, TA has become part of my routine ( I have been a listener since 1990), but slowly trying to wean myself away. We need Kate back causing trouble, and arealy super villain, I really can't be arsed with Rob and Jess, they are too boring, and that whole revelation thing is now getting very predictable.

Need to find something else!!!!!!
< , looks through TV guide, Radio guide in hope!>

[guineapiglet]

really - sorry for typos, too bored to write properly!

[Panzee]

I miss Brian and Matt and their Machivellian ways. Kathy's job saga and a whole village virtually ignoring Darrell is not really doing it for me. :(

[LondonMother]

I'm hoping against hope that we've heard the last of Darrell. Either his liver is going to pack up and he will take up residence in the churchyard, or he's off to some sort of rehab/in-patient care. I don't care, as long as he never speaks on air again.

With luck Jess will move on too, and the cast will get back down to a manageable size where we hear the regulars regularly. I haven't got over the shock of seeing people on the last thread but one or two asking who Oliver and Caroline were. These were people who'd been listening on and off for a few years and yet they hadn't heard enough of O and C to recognise them. Caroline in particular is one of the longest-standing characters. 60+ years of building up this cast and their back stories and this is the use they make of it - blow-ins like Darrell and Elona taking centre stage for months at a time with their storylines moving at a glacial pace, so we hear the same tedious stuff over and over again. Dispiriting.

[ZeroSomeFestiveGameThingy]

Very well put LM.

But - it occurred to me listening today that it is possible there is a brain at work behind the scenes... guineapig and Panzee have both pointed out that the village has ignored Darrell. I wonder if it's just by coincidence that the two households that had the greatest potential for influencing his life were effectively put out of action over the crisis period. Lilian and Matt - hampered by their guilt over the elderly tenants fiasco. And Brian and Jenny celebrating his 70th birthday on another planet.

Either of those couples could have nipped the whole thing in the bud if they'd had a mind to. Why focus this story on Shula's inadequate intervention? If not to force her household (or at least one of them) into a compensatory hugging close of Rosa.

Oh, I hope there's a plan.....

[ZeroSomeFestiveGameThingy]

So I guess what I meant to say was that the current tedium might be forgivable if they are actually thinking far into the future - so that in 60 years time Dan and Rosa will be the village elders.

[R4]

Totally agree about Oliver and Caroline, LM.

I caught a bit of Feedback the other day where they interviewed some of TA staff, including the continuity person. She was very proud of some spreadsheet that she has that tells her what David will be doing at 4pm on a Wednesday or Tom at lunchtime of a Friday. Every script is double checked by her. Heaven forfend that they should have Tom at Sawyers on a non-sausage day!
Shame her sharp attention to detail isn't allowed to cover character-traits too. I used to like young Ed, I hate what they have turned him into.

[GypsyFloss]

The problem for me is that writers signpost big stuff and then it comes to nothing. Pip and that dire boyfriend who dumped her and ran off to America is one example. The writer had her nipping off for naughty weekends in Newquay and selling the family jewellery to fund it but nothing ever came to light about it.

I know here are different writers on a regular basis but they just seem to pick and dump the story lines and change the characters to suit their needs.

They promised us great things when Nigel fell off the roof but I feel like I have yet to see them. There is great mileage in Helen and she is very well acted but now it looks like Rob and Jess will move away and that'll be the last we hear of them.

[ZeroSomeFestiveGameThingy]

A shiver down the spine. I wonder if (despite what the archivist said on Feedback) the writers are now assuming that listeners might just "dip in and out" so need to be kept intermittently entertained but don't need to be able to remember Ambridge history or characters.

It's painful to realise that they will have been brought up into the new dumbed down BBC. The main, main problem is that they no longer expect an intelligent audience.

[LondonMother]

Most of the writers are in their 50s or older, I believe, and many have been involved with the programme for decades. I wonder if the pressure to change comes from above? Vanessa Whitburn was a very strong personality, so I imagine what she wanted she got. However, she was Editor all through what I think of as the golden period of Brian's affair with Siobhan, so I don't blame her for the relative lack of strong storylines in the last few years. Not entirely, anyway.

It's always been the case that while there are plenty of saddos devoted listeners like me who never miss an episode, there are also lots who miss weeks or months on end and then pick it up again from the omnibus or a chance encounter with the radio at lunchtime. One of the joys of having a fairly small cast and a slow burn approach to storylines was that if you heard the Christmas pantomime at New Year, you could then have a frantic few months and miss almost everything, start listening again at Easter and find that nothing much had changed. Now the casual listener might wonder if The Archers had finally been replaced by something else.

[chocoluvva]

I quite like a "slow burn" and enjoy the cosiness of the village chit-chat - like a comforting rice-pudding! Ruth and David Archer seem too good to be true in a pleasant, all's right with the world way as is David's mum - whose name I've temporarily forgotten.

(Loved the Brian Archer/Siobhan, the Emma and Willl/Ed and the Ruth/ dairy guy stories too though).

I love the character of Linda Snell.

[Gigondas]

I don't mind a slow burn provided it leads somewhere .
I am really hoping that Jess' party leads to a drunken out burst from Helen. Jess seems to keep asking about Helen ( in shop, when Jennifer was saying about Greg) so it could happen.

As for will and ed, I know will has put up with a lot but he is so full of bile( George hates you outburst). How can nic find him attractive?

Also nic changed character from first incarnation . Seem to remember she smacked George? Also was bit of a party girl as I remember that she went on about will buying her a mini dress. Now she is mini Clarrie.

[ZeroSomeFestiveGameThingy]

Poor Nic! She's only trying to fit in. Neither Ruth nor Hayley are anything like the people they were when they arrived. (I wrote a long essay on early Nic several threads ago. Won't re-inflict it on anyone. Although tempted. )

I don't think Jess and Rob will move. Not together anyway. Maybe Rob will run away and Jess will be the one who stays?

[ZeroSomeFestiveGameThingy]

The reason Jess keeps seeking out Helen is that she likes her and thinks they might be friends.

Despite Helen's surliness in her presence, she's probably heard enough about her to think that they have stuff in common. (Ho, Ho.) Farming families, organic sympathies... And now she knows Helen's lived through the MH tragedy of a loved one she'll be gagging to hold her hand and do some professional empathising.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Getting very bored now with the WIll and Ed thing, has been going on for too long and very predictable

Don't you realise that this sibling enmity is probably going to run for their entire lives? I realised that as soon as Emma went off with Ed. If they're anything like as long-lived as their grandfather, they'll be warring after some of us have gone!

Still, at least they managed to behave tolerably well in Clarrie's presence for her sake.