Follow the subtle trail towards the Christmas storyline climaxes in Ambridge - discuss The Archers here

[PseudoBadger]

So many possibilities.... A visit from the Titcheners Snr? Baby of the wrong gender? A ruined wedding? Re-housed Grundys? RuthRex?

getting her 'baps' out

I'm not a fan of comedy 'women getting naked' stories

Is it me or are the writers taking fewer story lines and the just eking them out as slowly as possible? Why not have more story and less eking out?

I mean almost the whole series now rests on evil Rob. I think you need more going on then that and it also means the heinous dragging of everything out interminably.

Using Ruth's menopause/grief/midlife crisis/depression as a major storyline is incomprehensibly depressing for most of us surely. What's wrong with the writers? What they should have is one low key long running affair, that would give us all a break from them NOT resolving Rob ever and Ruth's harrowing moaning.

The listener is the customer and I don't want to buy this manure for long!

We should feel really sorry for Ruth and if this story had been written in another way we would. An only child losing her mum and her last connection to her childhood home with no one else to share any of those memories and this magnified by the fact that she lives in the heart of a huge family who have lived in the same place for generations so there is no one to identify with her plight. I would have thought she might have been taking some consolation in the fact that at least she has had a family of her own and that her kids are not only ones and are unlikely to ever find themselves facing the dilemma she faced because they are unlikely to ever move away from Ambridge. If SOC is determined to inject some drama by having David and Ruth split up couldn't he at least make the reasons for their rift believable ones rather than manufacturing animosity between Ruth and her MIL and trying to make us believe that one day she is worked off her feet and the next that she has nothing whatsoever to do resenting her oldest child who has been brought up since the day she was born (witness her name) to takeover the farm. I can understand her slight distress at the choice of Calendar Girls as the choice of Christmas production, but I don't ever recall being a stalwart of Lynda's productions in the past. Sorry, lost patience with Brookfield, can't stand the Fairbrethren, only listing for Knob and Hellin and to find out what happens to the Grundies.

Sorry I missed your fine post Lillian, all good points.

Oh and Ruth wouldn't care less about Calendar girls, she is so so spoilt. Maybe they could send her to Canada for some reason for about five years and let David marry someone with a less irritating accent (Love a Geordie accent but hate Ruth's version....).

Yeah, the IDEA that Ruth wouldn't have tons and tons to do is ridiculous.
Even if selfish Gill (hmm not really selfish is she Ruth?) rearranges the cereal cupboard?

Agri accident please, then she could join her beloved mum!
(sorry)

Ruth's annoyance with Calendar Girls and the Calendar appears to be that she is excluded (on account of her mastectomy). I don't think that would have been Lynda's radar though as she would not have been counting on Ruth to take part whatever play she chose.

Of course, I realised the perceived 'insensitivity' but it just adds to my loathing of Ruth. She is grieving and is assailed by some rigorous but some real first world problems, they own their home they have a strongish business she has kids a career a relatively loving husband, and she's not dying of cancer, I just want her to to stop complaining! It's the moaning combined with the way she does her accent that is aurally unacceptable to me.

Did Ruth have reconstructive surgery? Sure I remember something like that. And I'm a bit puzzled about Calendar Girls, have never seen it on stage but I'd assumed there would be only an illusion of undressed-ness so no reason for any willing female to be excluded. Surely the story planners didn't hit on this particular show just to give Ruth something to complain about?

It's lovely to think of the entire Archers listenership falling asleep while planning out the Brookfield kitchen cupboards.

I'm not a fan of comedy 'women getting naked' stories

Things have moved on here, from Calendar Girls etc. A local village is doing 'Men in Pants'

If Lynda had asked Ruth to be in Calendar Girls, Ruth would inevitably have had a major strop about how could she even have asked, she had far too much to do, she was grieving, moan, moan.

I am sad about what they are doing with Rooooth. Yes, she's annoying, but I was very much Team Rooth when Deeeevid did his unilateral volte-face re. the move. And as Lilian pointed out she is having a pretty shitty time - losing a parent as an only child is not a bundle of laughs (says one who knows). BUT, she really is being absurd now, so finding it hard to continue to hold a candle for her…… I think it's sloppy script-writing more than anything else.

Am more and more convinced that this is all gearing up for Ruth heading off to Prudhoe permanently; fine if they want shot of the character/the actree wants out but engineering the whole personality transplant and drama over David/Jill/Pip is just irritating.

Based on my anecdata sample of two (my own parents) - Northern Onlies who built themselves successful and very happy lives/families down South (ie have never had ties to their home since they left aged 18 to go to college) the focus would very much be on the positives of the life now and the family/friends they have rather than endless wailing about being cut adrift from family, home etc. Onlies tend to fall into one of two camps in my experience - independent, outgoing, resourceful which starts as little kids when they have to make their own entertainment, friends, turn up to things on their own with no sibs etc or the more 'stereotypical' spoilt, clingy, timid etc. Ruth has always struck me as the former and yet now we're supposed to believe she's the latter...

I agree Lynda who let's face it is one of the kindest, most sensitive people in Ambridge would absolutely not have not asked Ruth because of the mastectomy - if it had concerned her she would have had a chat with Ruth about how they could make her feel comfortable, use strategically place cake stands etc. She didn't ask her because she assumed she'd be too busy with either HeatherPet or Executing. Actually I've just realised this is why the Christmas Panto storyline always irritates me, we get 5 weeks of irritating one-dimensional Lynda and they ignore her lovely side.

It would also be too luch to.find Deevid spends all.of Ruth's inheritance before she even has it. Kenton already did that sl.

Notice how that has all kira ulously fixed itself too. Where is the building works at the Bull sl? Or Fallon planning cafe? Let's hear her side ibstead of Rob.

How is Kirsty getting on at that job she has no qualifications for?

RockNRoll You have summed up my feelings exactly. Well put - I couldn't agree more.

Yes - and the oh-so-swiftly-smoothed-over animosity between Kenton and David, now vanished with Ed's cows, so it seems.

If the shop's due to open next week, what's Fallon doing about getting the cafe going?

Oh it's all such bollocks.
It's true I can no longer suspend disbelie either.
Most of the things they do/say these days you just cannot imagine a real person saying.

I've completely missed the Ruth/Calendar Girls/Lynda issue - when did that come up?

And, yy, Bertrand - WHEN are Fallon and Knob going to have a showdown??

I try not to listen - it is very therapeutic

But I did catch Tony managing to hold on to his second-hand tables, despite Rob's best efforts.

Tony is my favourite. I met original Tony when he opened a fete I was helping at, when I was about 13. I didn't like what they did to him when Helen begat Henry, but this was more like the grumpy old Tony again.

I am quite happy for them to gloss over the Kenton/David animosity - it was silly.

Oh dear I can imagine a lot of people behaving in this miserable way. There is a near end to the Bull's renovations (admittedly rather quickly) which has been mentioned (kenton has paid back some of the money in a slightly odd way).

Oh I hope they don't just send her to Prudhoe, I hope there is a horrendous agricultural End of Times which takes out just Ruth in a 500 ft slurry explosion after which she is carried off by the four Horseman of the Apocalypse for crimes against radio drama.

I can't think why she would go back to Prudhoe when she has nobody there.

Most implausible bit, however, is Ben's interest in the kitchen cupboards. Any normal teenage boy would have left the cereal on the kitchen table with a little puddle of milk

I agree with Gruach that I find it difficult to believe that anyone, particularly amateur companies, actually does Calendar Girls fully nude - no matter how carefully you plan the artful placement of scenery, there is always the potential for mistakes/people tripping etc. Surely most productions use body stockings or something similar?

Ruth could be swallowed up by The Sinkhole. That would free up the bathroom a bit.

Better still, the Fairbrethren could attempt a rescue and be swallowed up too.

Most implausible bit, however, is Ben's interest in the kitchen cupboards. Especially from a boy (if indeed he exists at all) who showed no interest in domestic matters when Ruth was supposedly struggling to cope with her enormous farm work load (now mysteriously disappeared). While we were being led to believe he and Josh were domestically incompetent we are now supposed believe he was in fact masterminding the reorganisation of the Brookfield kitchen.