#102: Fatted calf is off the menu - will the Easter Bunny save Lower Loxley's bacon, or will there be egg on Russ's face? Will Tom's sausage business get the chop? Join us here to discuss The Archers!

[GabrielleNelson]

Thanks due to @PseudoBadger for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads and to @DadDadDad for being our resident statistician and keeping the ball rolling when Pseudo stepped back a bit. Thanks also to all those who contributed to the thread title, principally Dumdedumdedum and MikeUniformMike on this occasion.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed. We don't all agree on all points and most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd like to be Susan's best friend or other odd unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from this thread, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

So, to business: will Helen's new cheese be a success? Will Kate succeed in keeping her visiting Brummies under control? Will Pip, Toby, Tom and Natasha fall into the slurry pit, leaving Rosie to be brought up by Anthony Head Robin Fairbrother? Will we ever hear Lee again, and will he casually drop in a mention of his fine collection of framed Bruce Lee posters?

So sad about Joe, I hope they can give him a glorious death scene, even if the actor can't be present.
On the subject of disliking characters, I can't stand Emma, she was the cause of so much heartache for Ed and Will yet paints herself as Mother Theresa.

BuckingFrolics I think your reading of the Tony and Gnasher scene is spot on. Not only has Tom married in haste, so has she.

Was it joe who was with Nic when she died I can't remember

I find it very hard to believe that Tony would speak so disparagingly about his son to his new DIL. And although I despise Tom, if I were him I would never forgive my father for such a needless breach of loyalty.

(I still haven’t forgiven the older relative I overheard saying something mildly negative about me to my then boyfriend, decades ago.)

It's not just the disloyal summation, it's the attitude of "phew. Tom's been such a burden to us over the years but finally we can wash our hands of him as he's your problem now."

There have been so many off key incidents recently. It’s as if the writers have never met the characters before. Tony would never in a million years have had that conversation with Natasha.

👋🏻ANNOUNCEMENT

Hello all. It is with some regret that I have to announce here that after many years (well ( at least) of listening to The Archers, I cant take it any more and am giving it up, for ever!!
I put up with Helen and her irritating ways, with smug Deeeevid and Rooooth, Kate and the Aldridge's but I just CAN.NOT listen to one more minute after that nauseating dialogue between Natasha and Tony yesterday. It was so utterly ridiculous. That a man would talk about his adult son in terms like that, almost infantilising him, and then that bowing and scraping to natasha the obsequious fawning references to her business know how, I felt the puke rise up my throat.
It's over. No more of this rubbish. Life is too short.
Over and out, thanks for the laughs guys!🙌🏻😊

I cant take it any more and am giving it up, for ever!!
Lols. As if.

R4 do u doubt my resolve??
U underestimate my disgust 🤮

Of course, we're all assuming that the SW will now write Joe's death, but they could keep him going as a silent character or even bring in a new actor (I've probably moved everyone from the shock stage of grief to the anger stage with that thought ).

I've already deleted it from my Podcast library. I have cast it out!!💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

They won't bring in a new actor.

I think they have between now and the move out of Grange Farm where they can have him silent and then hopefully die in peace with Bartleby or the Ferrets or in his arm chair.

I find that these days I can't listen consistently. I have a lot of stress at home (teens x 2) and don't seem to be able to cope with any extra from TA. Gone are the days when I would lock myself in our utility room on a Sunday morning to iron and relax in peace whilst DH looked after 2 little ones.

Did anyone keep listening after yesterday's episode into Front Row? They had a short chat with Tim Bentinck who spoke movingly about Ted Kelsey and his final visit to him not long before he died (he lived in a retirement home and his room had a view out to fields with grazing livestock). It wasn't a long item but it was a nice way to mark his passing.

(And yes, Ted Kelsey was in ' The Vicar of Dibley', I think mentioned upthread?)

I don’t think they could replace Joe with a new actor. Given his age and longevity in the show that would seem to be hugely disrespectful and not something the audience would tolerate happily.

Either they do something like Phil’s death, or they may have planned for this and had something prerecorded already (I don’t know if the actor was ill, I mean if I was the editor I’d plan a year or three in advance for the older actors to prerecord some dialogue with family etc and some signposts towards illness. But that might be too macabre for them all to contemplate. Imagine having the conversation with the actor in question...)

It seems pretty crass to arrange lunch and a tea party during the working day and expect a daughter/granddaughter in law who works full time to be available at short notice. Tom should have asked them to rearrange for the weekend.

Very sad that we won't hear Joe any more (apart from the episodes Ted Kelsey had already recorded, which haven't been aired yet)

The only possible way to write him out is to have him pass away peacefully in his sleep.

Clarrie will go into his room one morning with a cup of tea, and she will find him.

It's a perfect way to go, and I'm so relieved he will end his long life in the house that he has always loved.

Note to SW:
I want Joe to die at Grange Farm, not No1 The Green.
I want Eddie to find him.
I want Freddie to buy Bartlebury (how old is he!?), the trap and Jem which will give a boost to EdnEm's deposit fund.

I think they should give Clarrie a speech somewhat like MIstress Quickly's in Henry V (or is is Henry IV 2?) in which she narrates the death of Falstaff. She will have sat at his deathbed as he 'smiled upon his fingers' ends', and 'babbled of green fields". Sob.

Yes ... Essentially Joe has died at Grange Farm (if one’s prepared to mix fact and fiction.)

Guess we’ll have to wait and see whether his final episodes were an official ‘retirement’ or just normal story. Really hope they end before the Grundys leave Grange Farm.

Tim Bentink mentioned something about Ted Kelsey having treatment, but didn't say what for. I'm wondering if it was cancer, so they may have put something in the storyline, for this reason.

They couldn't have a new actor playing Joe, he's been on it for too long. They won't need to do much acting when Joe dies in TA, the emotions will be very real.

I am a relentless lurker on these threads and had to seek you out after hearing the sad news about Ted Kelsay.
The Archers had made me tear up twice. Once when Peggys cat died - that was a shock for fellow dog walkers, passing me with cordless earphones in,listening to the podcast, tears coursing down my cheeks - and this morning.
RIP Joe

I think they will have already recorded or already planned the finding Joe had died in his sleep episode, and it will be at Grange Farm. If they haven't, it will be a while.
I think that the move from Grange Farm won't happen because Ed'n'Em's new house will fall through.
No 1 The Green will be rented to Brian and Jennifer.
Susan Carter will be delighted.

On the subject of parenting and Susan Carter, her and Neil's kids have turned out ok, as has Fallon.
The award for worst parenting would have to go to Pat'n'Tony.

if one’s prepared to mix fact and fiction

Well, there’s a first time for everything...ha ha!

Nancy Banks-Smith is back, with her tribute to Joe. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/25/nancy-banks-smith-on-the-archers-joe-grundy-farewell-from-me-and-the-ferrets

"He was free of all the fashionable problems that nice people suffer in Ambridge: depression and coercive control and donor insemination."