💥 Archers thread #119: Has the Bull reopened? Will Ambridge pull through? We’ve all dozed off and haven't a clue. Moan about the monologues 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 we should have monologues all the time from now on, or other 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 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 PPE on the last thread for the title suggestion, which I tweaked a bit.

As for the current state of affairs: here's how it could have been done. www.youtube.com/channel/UCvRSVdfQWAjNhNu1AtABYjw Nigel Pargetter returns, albeit in spectral form. I loved these.

I don't love the current set up. Very, very hit and miss for me - but I am too much of an addict to give it up. Looking for a silver lining, maybe the rather clunky trot through the Aldridge family tree last night was helpful to newer listeners. It is rather convoluted. In 12.5 minutes they managed to explain that Adam and Debbie are Jennifer's children by different fathers, that Debbie's father Roger Travers-Macy adopted Adam, that after he and Jenny divorced she married Brian and that he (secretly) loves Adam and not nearly so secretly adores Debbie. I don't think they explicitly stated that Kate and Alice are Brian's children with Jenny, but they did manage to squeeze in a mention of Siobhan and Ruairi, and explain that Xander is Adam's son by a surrogate and has no genetic connection to either Brian or Xander's other father Ian. Phew!

I really don’t want Emma to lose her job.

Me neither. But the SWs pretty much sealed her fate by telling us how much she loves the job, how much Fallon values her - and having her remark that she's almost a partner in the business ...

But moving the whole enterprise to Grange Farm could be a brilliant alternative, Pobblebonk.

Surely Fallon can’t run the Tea Shop alone? Even if there are very few actual customers coming in for drinks and she gets rid of the upcycling she won’t be able to do all the baking herself! They listed iced buns, flapjacks, quiche and fruit cake in passing yesterday, but I dare say they also churn out the brownies, cheese scones, lemon drizzle and coffee and walnut too! And then they have to package it all up ready to sell.

All too much for one pair of hands! She’s going to end up having to ask Jazzer back to help!

Surely Fallon can’t run the Tea Shop alone?
Agreed, but it's not the baking that's the problem. How do you take orders, make pots of tea, do table service, play host, take payment, clear plates, etc for several customers at once?

They could only relocate to Grange Farm if the Business Fairy could suddenly find catering-standard kitchen equipment there, space for tables & chairs and planning permission for change of use. Easy!

Fallon could set up somewhere less out of the way than Bridge Farm. Natasha should be careful what she wishes for.

Poor Chris.

I’m a very long-term listener, grew up with TA, and... I’m enjoying the monologues. I agree that some of them are truly crummy, but I like hearing the low-key prattle from inside their heads... 🤷🏻‍♀️

@R4

Surely Fallon can’t run the Tea Shop alone? Agreed, but it's not the baking that's the problem. How do you take orders, make pots of tea, do table service, play host, take payment, clear plates, etc for several customers at once?

They could only relocate to Grange Farm if the Business Fairy could suddenly find catering-standard kitchen equipment there, space for tables & chairs and planning permission for change of use. Easy!

Grey Gables? Oliver might just be glad of the chance to franchise something out at favourable rates.

I’ve lost track, but did they build the cooking school place for cheese making lessons at Bridge Farm? Could that be converted to a cafe? Or is that a figment of my imagination?

@Chemenger, Asking will know for sure but my vague memory is that Helen decided it wasn't worth going ahead as there wasn't a huge amount of interest when she offered a few trial sessions.

They could join forces with The Bull. I find it odd that people drive out of their way to go to the tearoom at Bridge Farm. If they set up shop in The Bull there would be more passing trade from people going to the Village Shop, the Village Hall and the playground and pond on the Green. Also, in normal times, coach parties.

(A month since I started this thread and we're a third of the way through! @DadDadDad will know for sure, but I don't think we've ever had such a slow-moving thread. Can't say I'm surprised, though.)

Welcome, @auntieElle! I'm glad somebody is getting on with the monologues. I don't hate them, but I'm not entranced.

I'm afraid you are right - this thread has managed 11 posts per day on average - a lot lower than "normal" (30+ posts per day).

To answer your specific question @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g, posting rates do dip in the summer, but we've never had a thread go below 15 posts per day, apart from Pseudo's very first thread back in April 2013!

I love sweet peas. The bouquet in the pint glass was a lovely touch!

I love sweet peas too. Alice doesn't deserve Chris. I imagine she was heading out on the lash even as she called to say she was working late. He's not that thick, so I hope he cottons on. Somebody needs to think of Alice's liver!

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g
@Chemenger, Asking will know for sure but my vague memory is that Helen decided it wasn't worth going ahead as there wasn't a huge amount of interest when she offered a few trial sessions.

Just so. Nobody at all wanted to come on the second course she arranged after the first was under-subscribed, so she gave up the idea.

I imagine she was heading out on the lash even as she called to say she was working late
I wondered if she might decide to stay in the eco-office and just drink there. She could crash there overnight then and be ready for work in the morning. She said that she often rolled into work at PB without a shower after a night on the booze so that won’t be anything new.

My bet is on

• drinking a few in the office
• heading home and realising her drinking might be noticeable
• attempting to 'walk it off'
• winding up in 'the shed'

Dang! Just missed TA on Feedback ...

There's always the listen again thing

Positive, my arse.

Not enjoying the moan-ologues. I am not interested enough in people like David, Johnny & Harrison to want to listen to them drone on for the whole episode. I just lose track. The Susan radio show was ridiculous.

I do enjoy the Alice alcohol story though, I think it is being done quite well. It seemed a bit unsatisfactory the way it had been dealt with before & not followed up on. She's lost her job, her marriage sounds in trouble & I wonder if she's going to be caught driving impaired & the whole situation will blow up?

It is disappointing that one of the educated accomplished female characters is on a downward trajectory though as it would be nice to see a female doing well in their career without having to leave Ambridge.

I heard it. Alison Hindle told us that listeners were contacting the BBC to say how delighted they were to hear dialogue again this week. Roger Bolton, to his credit, pressed her on why it's taken so long to get away from the monologues. She said it was because at the outset nobody could predict how things would go and it was clear they couldn't continue to record in the usual way on H&S grounds. (Yes, we know.)

Then she said TA was different from stand-alone drama because of the complexity of keeping the plotting going over a long period and because it has so many episodes a week, so there's a lot of output for the technicians to work on, and although she didn't say so I suppose it would have taken longer for SWs to re-write dialogue and to set up recording with more actors involved per week. She said it would have taken four times as long as normal to do the technical stuff after recording the programme if they'd been trying to do dialogue. The unspoken follow on to that was that the BBC was unwilling or unable to pay for that, but could find the money to do it for a few stand-alone dramas.

Nobody attempted to deny that it hasn't gone down well with listeners, so there's that. Normally the BBC bats away all criticism on Feedback.

The BBC bats all criticism IME.

I have complained a couple of times and been fobbed off twice.

One was about Come Fly With Me and the other was the puppy for Christmas story (What happened to Holly?)

Both were valid complaints.

She said it would have taken four times as long as normal to do the technical stuff after recording the programme if they'd been trying to do dialogue.

It takes about an hour to edit two-and-a-half hours of six people recording, each onto an individual track. Some of that time is spent reconciling the time-slip between the different people's recordings, which would not be the case with scenes three minutes long because the time-slippage would be negligible over such a short period.

It's about as difficult as rocket-science, which any fule kno is really rather simple in spite of its reputation.

We know that they are able to get the moanalogues to a "dead" background, because they have been doing that for months now and did it from the start. That being the case, three or four tracks plus one of farmyard or birdsong or background musak so it doesn't sound dead and differences in recordiing quality don't bounce out and distract the listeners ought not to be beyond their capability.

Has anyone asked the actual techies? have they been allowed a say about this? Or is it all and only pointy-haired bosses telling us what the techies can't do?

Given that there are so many talented actors, many just out of drama school, that are busy doing "not very much" it would have been the perfect time for the writers to introduce some temporary characters like the Gills, somebody in an Airbnb or one of Kate's Yurts, seasonal workers from the local town instead of Bulgaria, maybe guests at the Snell's B&B. Endless possibilities to OBSERVE life in the village.

Blimmin heck. Even Shakespeare wrote his plays in parts. The actor wouldn't receive the play - just their part. Then they'd have one or two rehearsals to put it all together.

I think the TA gods are lily-livered snivelling wretches to be so utterly defeated when we possess enough tech in our pockets on our smart phones to put together a reasonable sounding 90 minutes of drama a week.

Pathetic.