Our modest little The Archers thread has its very own radio celebrity! Join us for the hottest chilli in town, and await the impending doom as all plans go into reverse in Ambridge.

[PseudoBadger]

It's all getting rather delicious. I feel sorry for Kenton the fool

Yes, TA has that bit more scope for commandment-breaking than other soaps. I'm sure that none of the combined denizens of EE, Corrie etc have ever cast a covetous eye over their neighbour's ox, whereas it's pretty rife in Ambridge. (Though I suppose when Emmerdale was Farm they might have done.)

Yes errol you are right. -
Once and once only!!

I listened to it again and think with some imaginative SW they could have recreated Phils bequest by conversation and not resorted to the ghost of Christmas past, although Phils voice did set me aquiver... It is obviously a device to portray the depths Dayveed has sunk to in his being swept up with everything , but even so..once and once only!!
He hasn't had a deep and meaningful conversation with Roooth on air at least, everything is taking a pace almost on autopilot which is quite realistic when farm/house sales are proceeding...you just get caught up in it

Whilst I agree there is no way David would have ever contemplated selling the farm it IS a clever plot point. Will sow some discord in David ad Roof's marriage bed. Always a good thing. Pip too will be livid. Also a good thing.
And none of David's siblings will want to talk to him as their plans for expanded businesses go down the plug hole.

I'm not sure who there would be though who could have had that conversation with David. I don't think anyone needed to have it - as soon as Ruth suggested selling the farm David should have had that conversation with her. That is certainly what many of us were saying when the preposterous plan was first mentioned. He would have been the one saying - no that's ridiculous, remember what Dad said when he left us the farm, I know you are worried about your mum, but this is not the answer. And then Jill would have backed him up etc etc. I fully accept that going down this route has set up some potentially dramatic fall out, but when it springs from something so unrealistic I think it makes all those storylines less believable as well. I have to say when DH and I heard Phil last night we laughed out loud - in the past the Archers has moved me to tears (so DH has to remind me it's not real you know). I know it isn't real, but I want to believe it could be - otherwise I might just as well be watching EE.

Well, I've never heard Phil's voice before and had NO idea what was going on. I thought it was Justin Elliot talking to someone outside the shed; thoroughly confusing! But once I figured out what the chuff was happening it was quite emotional. But yes, very Afternoon Play.

I think the most obvious way to have done this would be for Josh to have the rage (for the past however months) and be all 'Grandad left the farm to you!'. That would also take care of the ridiculousness of all 3 children being happy with the move. Deevid's going to have to be Very Brave now isn't he?

However ridiculous we knew it was, I think the way it's been written is that David thought leaving the farm would be easier than seeing it rent in two. The nostalgia kicked up by clearing out the attic, along with the magical mysterious milk round that NO-ONE in the village 'remembered' has made him realise that's not the case.

Almost plausible, if I'm being kind.

Have just completed a mini-omnibus, catching up from Sunday.

Did anyone else notice Kenton's comment about Fallon running the pub while they're away: "it's not like there's going to be a plague of locusts, is it?". It made me think, maybe another biblical catastrophe though? Maybe a flood?? Maybe this is when all those weird weather precursors are going to come to a head and route B will be abandoned..?

Thought the Phil stuff was just a bit meh, tbh.

I thought the Helen deciding to sell the shop SL was quite well-handled. Shows that Rob just has to put a small idea in her head and she goes for it. Agree with PPs, though, it will be outrageous if Tom'n'Pat agree to it. But then that's maybe going to be the next stage of Rob's EA - isolating her from her family (along with St Smug of course, after Oliver bans him from the hunt).

I think you may have it. There will be a huge flood/sinkhole related tragedy a la emmerdale and the plane. This will enable huge new cast introductions (like Janice and other grange spinney residents)

songbird I also thought it was JE at first! but like lillian I then burst out laughing. Please never do this again SW!

I do love the idea of Jill playing the long (very very long) game by secretly recording Phil, faking Dan's diaries with the fiendish skill of a master-forger, as Bluestocking (?) suggested, and then retro-fitting a cow with speakers and a remote control so she can hit playback just as David reaches the right spot (maybe she'd concealed herself in a hollowed-out hay-bale?).

That would make the protagonist in Gone Girl seem like a mere amateur.

Perhaps we should start speculating about who Janice is?

My guess is Justin Elliot's mistress, installed in Ambridge to set-up a secret love-nest ahead of his arrival.

PMSL at Jill the forger/dream-inducer/master criminal. She must have been taking lessons from Carole Tregoran.

hahahahhaha @Halsall

Me too Squeaver.I absolutely love the idea of Jill faking the diaries and making a tape of Phil. Surely though the ideal time to introduce this storyline would have been in the middle of all that seance nonsense.

Jill was nearly uncovered as the criminal mastermind behind the faked Hitler diaries but she did a last-minute switcheroo and made some German guys the patsies.

Oh god that wasn't the culmination of the séance that I had almost wiped from my memory was it?!

You do know Phil didn't really die?

Poor man was so bored sitting in that rocking chair day after day. He and Jill agreed he could take extended leave in - where was it? Costa Rica? Building up a nice little pig business. Matt's been flying out regularly with some Borsetshire Blue and Brookfield beef. This time he couldn't keep the sale crisis quiet. And he's said he'll look after the pigs while Phil sorts things out back home.

I don't know why any of you thought he was a figment of David's overactive brain last night. Just wait - in an hour and a quarter you'll hear Phil chatting cozily with Ruth and Pip around the Aga ...

Surely Janice is just "a newcomer" like Justin Elliott, her significance been that she is not an Archer and no more.

Have we had a thread title along the lines of "There have always been Starkarchers at Cold Brookfield Farm" yet? I feel like Jill is shaping up into an excellent Aunt Ada Doom.

*being not been. Tired...

Ha ha, yes something narsty in the woodpile too!

I didn't like phils ghost by the way. It was very jarring. Was that an actual recording of an old episode?

This thread is so much fun! Jill has always been a mistress of passive-aggressive manipulation and the whole Hadley Hon/Hadley Hoff/Hadley Hon Hagain situation has given her the most perfect opportunity to shine.

I love Elephants' Starkarchers thread title and feel we are hurtling towards something very nasty indeed in the woodsheds of Ambridge.

Zero, did you refer to "David's overactive brain"? Now there's a phrase you don't hear too often on an Archers thread.

Norman Painting has died so I would imagine so

It was lovely to hear his voice again

Now that I've watched series one of GoT that title actually makes sense to me!

(Though I am still reserving judgement on the hallucination/visitation however)

I imagine Janice is just a silent character not to appear again no?

The story writers clearly don't have toddlers if they think relinquishing the toy farm will be a simple matter