As another voice actor does a bunk in the night, is he watching them all with the eyeeeeeee .... of the TIGER? Bring back Matt unadulterated to The Archers NOW.

[PseudoBadger]

This is too much for me now. I need to meditate.

I thought that Sunny Ormnde was over-acting a bit with the whole "I'll find my Tiger!" melodramatic proclamation, though I suppose maybe the point is that her character is acting in order to kid herself that Matt is coming back. Harrison did quite a good job of neither encouraging her nor cruelly dashing her theories.

BOOP point: the menacing way Rob said "I bet he would" or something similar when Helen told him that Ian would be devastated to know that Adam had got it on with Charlie. Such evil. The actor is bloody good.

Helen is great at deluding herself, and often manages to rope others into that delusion, so that they end up supporting her (which is why she's known as HellQueen or the Thin Controller) . Take the whole "I can bring up a baby by myself" business. Of course she couldn't and ended up back at home with Pat and Tony and only moved out to be with Rob.
She fancied Rob the moment she set eyes on him (and said this to Adam) and is resolutely blind to everything else. It's annoying but at least consistent

Exactly Phaedra, how is that winning? I want to throw things at the radio at such stupidity. Off to calm down now.

I find Rob's reaction totally believable: if you know he's the daddy & he's a control freak. Jess has such delight in her voice because she's making him squirm. When people are in love they are blind to someone's faults, I guess that's Helen's explanation.

I thought Sunny Ormonde was overacting last night too, but assumed it was a reaction to this awful storyline she finds herself in. I often see people commenting that surely the actors try to argue that their character would never say X, Y or Z. I can see that happening with the odd word or phrase here and there, but on the whole I imagine jobbing actors (not on contract, any of them - paid by the episode) don't feel in a strong enough position to say 'But this would just never happen!' I reckon they look at the script, swallow hard, think about the mortgage and just get on with it.

Jolene is a dirty old woman. She loves making men feel uncomfortable with her innuendo, low-cut tops etc etc. It's a pity nobody has ever taken her to task over it. I can see Fallon's AIBU now - 'AIBU to think my mum shouldn't be making lewd remarks about walking in on my boyfriend in the shower?'

Agree about jolene. She makes me really uncomfortable sometimes! The whole thing about goosebumps was just to make him feel uncomfortable. Also, my mum wouldn't walk in on me in the shower so even if she thought it was fallon it still seems weird.

It's amazing that ambridge has managed without a policeman so long. And does pc plot not have a home that he could shag fallon in? I found the whole will they won't they story between the pair dull an unconvincing and their early relationship seems dull too.

I think Lillian was supposed to sound like she was bordering on the hysterical

I don't have a problem with how Lilian sounded: I think she really was trying to convince herself that everything was OK whilst underneath being terrified that it isn't, knowing Matt's past.

I also really don't think Helen is pregnant unless it is an accident, which for someone like her is, to say the least, unikely. She hadn't agreed with Knob that they'd try, and that idea of his has essentially been overtaken by the whole Jess thing. Why in the middle of that would she have changed her mind without it having been signalled at all in their discussions?

Two things:

1. a flight from Madeira to London takes about 4 hours, so no one would expect to sleep! SW take note, a quick Google would have told you this.
2. did you spot that in the Echo article Justin Elliot had said he had local roots? I wonder if our love child theory is closer than we thought?

Hmm, we know the back story of most main characters so I am ruling them out (can you imagine Jill having a fling with JE!?). The only possible suspect is JD but she is one of the biggest anti-JE protesters.
Who else do we know who was free with her favours, has children, has been recently re-introduced with (apparently) no obvious purpose ...?

My suggestion was that JE was the lovechild of an ambridge stalwart - maybe phil had a wild night in felpersham however many years ago!

I was being tongue in cheek because that is a very Eastenders storyline - abandoned child becomes wealthy and comes back to wreak revenge only to tell everyone why he is doing as he is a nano second from succeeding - only to slip and fall into the car mangler allowing everyone to get on with their lives as usual

R4

But JE's ancient!

A war-time evacuee perhaps?

Peggy's love-child?

R4. Are you suggesting he might be something to do with Carol? He's too old to be her child and I mentally dismissed all that stuff about her childhood but there's that old painting of her childhood home hanging around......

How old is he supposed to be?

I think the character would be highly unrealistic if he were older than 60. Given the damara capital story etc i would fid it most realistic if he was late 40's/early 50's but i know he is older - just don't know how much by!!

He sounds older than that and Simon whatsit must be knocking on so I think of him in his 70s.

Hmmmm, I find this whole storyline unrealistic from a business perspective and him being older than 60 makes that more so. Feels too much like a 'let's do a big business bad' storyline but they haven't bothered to get a 'real life' consultant. Much like a lot of the other storylines

Are you suggesting he might be something to do with Carol? He's too old to be her child

I originally thought that he and Carol had the fling but thinking about it some more:
Carol is about the same age as Jill
Jill was born in 1930
Simon Williams was born in 1946
We assume that JE is approx the same age as his actor
We assume that upstart JE is younger than doddering Brine (born 1943)

So, yes, Carol could have been his gymslip mum in the mid 40s (an American GI overpaid, oversexed and over here?) and he was sent away to be adopted.

Yes that could work. Was carol in te south borchester area at the potential time of birth?

Phil in a nightclub in the late '40's....

And JE said he wanted a vinyard. That's proof positive that Carol is his mum.

If it turns out my love child reenge theory is correct I am so going to start playing the lottery.

Poor Jill. All those years she thought she was fighting the ghost of Grace. In fact Grace was only a rebound thing and Carol was the real love of Phil's life.
No wonder Carol sounds so smug and I-know-something-you-don't all the time.

JE said he wanted a vinyard

He's secretly a Pargeter and out for Lower Loxley. Lizzie's going to have an affair with him.

(Olivia, these are wild speculations, not spoilers.)

To counter the over dramatic storyline I think (hope) the adam/ian/Charlie thing could be ok. It may be adam tells ian himself and they sort it out and move on. Also Knob can try to stick the knife in but there are some big obstacles. Knob is hardly in a position to judge re infidelity; blackmailing your boss re infidelity is difficult while they are deducting child support payments from your wages! Knob is good at EA but a bit thick when it comes to other things.

It may be adam tells ian himself and they sort it out and move on.

Hmm, I get the impression that Adam has actually gone off Ian and doesn't regret the tryst with Charlie at all. Christ knows why, Ian is worth a million Charlies but doesn't bode well for him agreeing to put it behind him.

Yes that is wishful thinking on my part. But it is quite illuminating that rob appears to be rubbing his hands together at another's infidelity/ relationship problems when he should be feeling sick to his stomach.