💥 Archers thread #118: Back in time for The Archers - catch up with the catch up until the scriptwriters catch up! Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

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 think Philip Moss is in line for Employer of the Year, or other unusual views.

Spoilers: OK, there aren't likely to be many for the foreseeable future, but when we do have some, 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 www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3853783--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-5-Cant-wait-for-7-02pm-Join-us-here, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have - BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Thanks to @LillianGish for the title! This thread starts at a very odd time for The Archers, longest-running soap opera in the world. No new episodes expected till late May , and when we do get them they're not going to sound like normal, as the actors are recording separately at home and the BBC is attempting to cobble it all together. Tough times for the sound effects team!

The BBC is filling the gap by repeating key episodes from the last 20 years. Some of us here will have heard them before, but not all, by any means, so if you want background on what you hear this is the place to ask.

Over to you! I must try to catch up with the repeats at some point today.

It was on yesterday but I wasn't listening.
Ditto. DH was talking over it and I decided that he was more interesting than TA.
I've listened to the lunchtime repeat: how long before Kirsty realises that she's started the "walking on eggshells" thing?

Saw this today:
www.theguardian.com/society/picture/2020/jun/23/clare-in-the-community-the-archers-spaces-out

Cartoon's not up to much but interesting that TA has registered.

Last night's episode was extremely dull. Also frustrating. Kirsty answers phone to Helen, we move to someone else. Helen says goodbye to Kirsty, starts musing on what's been said. For the love of goodness, why couldn't we hear the conversation?

Because it would cost more money. The actual excuse given by Keri Davies was "it would take four times as long" to have dialogue instead of monologue, but in this case that is four times as much wages for someone.

Just do a Zoom call (other conferencing platforms are available) and record it. If the sound quality is crap, that's just a bit realistic. (Apparently I was breaking up on a call just now - sounded fine my end...)

I just don't get it, Asking. I forget how many actors we normally have in a week but it's several times as many as we're hearing from now. Maybe they're getting a higher rate than normal because of having to handle the equipment and giving up space in their homes to house it. Even so, surely they must be saving a lot of money on actors? Why not use it to get the recording engineers to work?

I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt to start with. It's hard now to think ourselves back to early March, and I understand they had to prepare for the worst and make a rapid decision about what to do while they couldn't record in the normal way. But they left it so late to acknowledge the existence of the virus and put Ambridge into lockdown that now when the rest of us are gradually moving out of it they seem to be weeks and weeks behind. They'd have done better to decide it just hadn't happened in Ambridge.

It no more has to be crap than any recording from home by an actor for the BBC has to be crap; that is the point. The quality of recording that we hear in the monologues is available from the actors' homes -- or we wouldn't hear it.

It might be done like this: You have your Zoom/Jitsi/whatever call with each party to it listening to the others over headphones (to prevent bleed from the rest, and because the quality of a Zoom call is indeed often crap and you won't want to use that) and record using the mic provided by the BBC, just as now. Each person's recording, two, three or however many of them, is immediately sent to the BBC tech crew via the individual's computer. They take the two, three, four tracks of tape, load the recordings into an audio editor each as a separate track, do noise reduction, sync them up using a master-recording of the full conference which is then discarded, and mix them together. Voila, sound quality as good as that on the monologues, with a larger number of people in conversation.

I know someone who does this every week for five or six people talking together; the mastering of a tape from the originals takes him about forty minutes for each hour of conversation. It then has to be listened through to make sure nothing has gone wrong, of course, but we know from the times they have (for example) played a background-noise so loudly that the words being spoken are impossible to make out, or left forty seconds or more of dead air being broadcast, that the BBC don't really think that is necessary.

And that is not rehearsed: I really don't expect that TA is recorded in a single take for each short scene, so one or two extra takes would not be unusual for them to deal with. Twenty-four episodes in six days was what they always used to record; I don't know whether that had been altered before lockdown struck, but it doesn't seem that impossible to achieve now as well.

As you can see, Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g, I don't actually believe the excuses: as I say, that was the actual excuse given by Keri Davies. I just don't know what the real reason is, though if the question is "why don't they...?" the answer is almost always "money" one way or another.

Oh, and they have been splicing individual actors in for years: all the children are recorded at home and then spliced in, and I think some of the oldest actors as well. They do have the tech.

When you consider whole orchestras and choirs have managed to put together each person's contribution, you'd think the BBC would be able to manage it easily.

Off topic slightly, but has anyone watched Staged on iPlayer, with Michael Sheen and David Tennant? I recommend it.

I'm a bit confused and can't bear to listen again. Is Helen organising a virtual hen do for poor Kristy? Why? She's not getting married any time soon.

Officially, Kirsty was planning to have an "engagement party" some time this month. I don't see why Helen organising her a hen night is any stranger than that!

I have hopes for the Zoom hen do, a perfect chance to have badly merged voices. And maybe the start of hints of what's to come?

I watched the first episode of Staged and didn't like it enough to watch another one.
I was disappointed that Helen isn't able to see what is happening with Kirsty.

Poor Cursedy.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

I just don't get it, Asking. I forget how many actors we normally have in a week but it's several times as many as we're hearing from now. Maybe they're getting a higher rate than normal because of having to handle the equipment and giving up space in their homes to house it. Even so, surely they must be saving a lot of money on actors? Why not use it to get the recording engineers to work?

I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt to start with. It's hard now to think ourselves back to early March, and I understand they had to prepare for the worst and make a rapid decision about what to do while they couldn't record in the normal way. But they left it so late to acknowledge the existence of the virus and put Ambridge into lockdown that now when the rest of us are gradually moving out of it they seem to be weeks and weeks behind. They'd have done better to decide it just hadn't happened in Ambridge.

The Archers can have 39 actors per week, Gasp0de. I don't watch Coronation Street but they have been really on the ball. They did lots of rewriting and additional recording before lockdown and have already started filming again. There were some striking photos of the actors and technical staff on set the other week. Of course, Coronation Street has a much larger budget but I do hope the rambling monologue format is entirely for safety reasons and not a dreadful Big Idea that we would want to know the innermost secrets of the characters' minds.

I actually enjoyed Soosan's episodes and Emma's but I got so irritated with Justin and Lilian last week that, although Kate was good, I haven't listened properly this week.

I am preferring having more characters than just one family this week. But I'd still prefer something more normal. Dead Ringers can manage it.

I’m really sorry. I love Tracey but couldn’t face another monologue on Roman and cricket so I skipped last night’s - again...

Yes ... I love Tracy and Susan too, but the script is so incredibly inconsequential that even though I was sitting beside the radio with no interruptions my mind kept wandering away. I couldn't tell you today what they talked about last night ...

Oh, it was something about Roman's parents. I may have missed a bit, but couldn't work out where he was, so lost interest. And Kirsty and a bird? God it was dull ...

Susan told an anecdote about Tracy on her radio show. Tracy is so cross she is going to spread a rumour that Neil is still carrying a torch for Shula. It wasn't a good episode.

The Archers can have 39 actors per week

Not really, though. There is an average of 6.5 actors per episode, which is 39 over six days, but it includes actors appearing for more than one day each in the week: for instance David speaking on five days in it.

I don't think there has been a weekly cast-list since April 2010 containing more than 30 actors. For instance there were ten actors on 2nd January 2011, the half-hour party at which Nigel died, but during that week only 23 actors are listed as being in the cast. There were 26 actors in The Week Of The Great Flood.

I think it is better to think of it as the number per episode -- since they are not using the studio and no-one has to travel there that would make sense anyway. Six actors one day, seven the next, which is roughly what they do anyway, with occasional eights and fives and every so often a ten and then sixes and fives for the rest of the week.

I am not sure what the usual length for each scene is, but I doubt that it is more than four minutes unless it's an exceptional one like Debbie berating Brian for his infidelity, or Kathy ditto Sid.

Oh, and there were thirteen in the cast on the Sunday of the Hour-Long Jury Shout-In on 11/9/2016, which was more-or-less an extra with little or nothing to do with the programme proper, but leaving out the eight jurors the cast for that week was twenty-five

I loved Staged, and also last night's TA! Must have missed Tracey threatening to reveal Neil's admiration for Shula though, I thought she was just spluttering as the programme ended!

I am preferring having more characters than just one family this week. But I'd still prefer something more normal. I nearly shouted at the radio this week. We were listening to someone wittering on, then the phone rang ... ooh a conversation! But no, off they went to listen to the other person wittering on, and we didn't come back to the first until the phone call had finished. I'm sure they could manage two on a phone call. It's as if they're playing a game to pass the time - "let's see how long we can keep going with never having more than one character at a time".

Today we have two interesting things:

A swarm of bees that has apparently been wandering around Ambridge since Monday -- like they do, or rather they don't.

A man who is in charge of a criminal operation leaving his unlocked phone lying around.

I don't believe in either.

(Tracy was threatening Neil, not Susan, which the editor/scriptwriter/production team seem to have missed.)