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?

Okay Annie well she still has feet and can walk to friends etc. unless of course she's tied up in a darkened room with a bucket. .

OMG.

She's going to come back with a new voice.

Olivia Colman, Kristin Scott Thomas (swoon but probably too expensive), Kate Winslet (no swoon but otherwise ditto), Rachel Weisz, Minnie Driver, Emma Thompson, Sarah Lancashire, Emily Watson?

Emma Thompson probably favourite in SOC's terms because she comes from an acting dynasty.

Would they have to be female?

Don't most TA parts go to young men? (Preferably with a family connection.)

I vote for Andrew Scott. (If Alan Cumming is considered too ancient.)

And of course Mr Cumberbatcth might be on the downward slope by then and grateful for a long term R4 return. He was latterly perfectly brilliant as a lapsed Yourkshireman. Lapsed Northumberland shouldn't be a stretch.

The important thing is that they pick someone who can make Ruth popular ...

I get that her mum has died, but has SOC forgotten she is a mother herself? I know they've virtually been written out - apart from Ben's kitchen reorganisation frenzy - but we are supposed to believe they still exist aren't we? I find it hard to believe that she has such great feeling for a mother she rarely saw and yet apparently so little feeling for her own DCs. I find myself screaming at the radio "You might have lost your mum, but your children still need theirs." Nothing that has happened to the Brookfield Archers since the move was first mooted has been in anyway believeable.

OK, things are really getting out of hand on the credibility front now….. Pat buying into the idea that a woman is incapable of driving or doing anything rational, frankly once she is pregnant is the silliest thing I have ever heard .Talk about stretching credibility! Pat, the ardent feminist? Come on…

And Ruth suddenly off to NZ. Er - totally random piece of nonsense.

Roof has the middle aged itch she'll get over it.

Unless Ruth actress wants to leave (which she may well do given the poor writing of her character recently) I should imagine there would be mutiny amongst the other actors if she were recast

They didn't mutiny over the Tom re-casting or Nigel being killed off, did they? I get the impression that for the actors, it's a job. They turn up, read the lines, go home. They're not nearly as bothered about it all as we are.

The mutiny is more an act of self preservation though. It's like they're picking off the old characters one by one

Another fine Birmingham institution - nay, National Treasure - ruined by a blow-in who doesn't understand the product nor its consumer.

Neatly done, R4!

Exactly the same thing happened with Rowntree's and Terry's, didn't it?

Yeah, but they're not Birmingham so it spoils the the analogy!

Why's Ruth so bloody precious about no-one being able to understand what it was like when her mother died? It's happened to millions of people. And, after all, David knows what it is to have a father die.

I can't see how going off on a jolly with the Felpersham Farmers is going to help Ruth find herself or whatever it is she wants to do. But I suspect once she has found herself she'll also find a hunky FF and have a raving affair, and she'll tell David it's all his fault for not moving to Prudhoe.

Had to come on here to make sure I actually was listening to The Archers. NZ? Where did that come from? And the Pat, Helen-Rob thing?? Last month I thought it was getting a little bizarre, now it is just ridiculous.

To be fair, guntled (and that's very hard for me when it's Ruth, not many of us have had our mothers die in the passenger seat of the car in a service station...........

I wonder if the Pat thinking pregnancy reduces rational thought and the ability to drive, is because she is under the spell of Rob? She seems so dazzled by his shop organising abilities she takes it all at face value?

After all that is what manipulation does, makes you see what the person wants you to see.

Pity she can't be more like Tony.

I could really smash my radio when that patronising git, Rob, smarms his way about and if he says 'darling' one more time with the undertone of threat, my radio's a gonner.

Rob's a great character though - I argue back with him on the radio, I want to know what Jess meant about "what he's really like", I want to know why he's estranged from his family, I want to carry on listening in the hope that everything unravels and blows up in his face.........

whereas Roooooooth can go to New Zealand and shack up with a hobbit, I just don't care

If her mum had a burning desire to go to NZ or if she had family there or she had ever, once mentioned NZ before....

I agree with Marmalade. It's waiting for the unravelling of Rob that's keeping me listening. (But I don't want SOC to know that!)

The stupid thing about Ruth taking herself off to New Zealand, is that she feels that she is out of the loop and they are managing without her because she's been out of the loop and they had to manage without her. So to solve this, she is taking herself out of the loop so they have to manage without her some more... By the time she gets back they will probably have sold all the cows and started farming llamas or something, and she will wonder why she wasn't consulted...

Spot on dairyfarmerswife. Her problems, such as they are, stem from her enforced time away from Ambridge. Can't see how going away again is going to fix that. Is David supposed to put everything on hold until she comes back or Skype her in New Zealand to run every decision past her? Has Felicity Finch got something else on at the moment or is she looking to leave? That's the only possible I can think of for SOC involving her in such an unlikely series of storylines. Sad too to see the Knob/Hellin storyline, previously so subtly done, now being attacked with the same sledgehammer as other plots.

I haven't seen anything (so far) that suggests Felicity Finch has a whole new broadcasting/acting life. She interviews some fairly singular people for Outlook on the World Service. And has always been involved in broadcasting quite far away from Birmingham as well, but not enough to take her permanently from Ambridge.

Perhaps we'll just have to file this under "nothing lasts for ever". Perhaps she's bored or SOC has read too many posts, comments, tweets from people who can't stand Ruth.

But NZ. The home of frozen lamb competing for space in English supermarkets. Odd choice.