🎄Archers thread #122: Deck the Hall with Eddie, Freddie 🎵 'Tis the Season to be jolly (but orange juice for you, Alice)

[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 love Bert Fry’s poetry (as I do), 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 @C8H10N4O2 for requesting an annoyingly cheerful thread title which might take us up to Christmas and to @Prestissimo for the title suggestion. I was strongly tempted by @LillianGish’s suggestion: Eddie’s turkeys, Freddie’s show, village green with lights aglow, Stir Up Sunday, Deck the Hall, Merry Christmas one and all - with apologies to Bert Fry and @R4’s suggestion Wassail to the Ambridge Not-A-Panto where Freddie gets nine LESSONS in directing from CAROLe Lynda. Top work, all!

Three days to go until we can return to Ambridge.

My list for Father Christmas

In the next few weeks I’d like:

• Freddie’s show to be a huge success

• Philip and Gavin to be driven out of the village with pitchforks into the waiting arms of the police, and the three ‘horses’ rescued and taken in by kind people who will help them turn their lives around

• Pip to take a perpetual vow of silence and leave for a nunnery

• a terrific Grundy Christmas (although the travails of Alice and Chris will overshadow things)

• Alice to lose the baby, as this seems the least grim option for us listeners; she leaves Chris and makes a fresh start of some kind

What do you all want for Christmas from The Archers?

In fact, the reality of dating Oliver would be ghastly - please don’t make me....

If/when Chris and Alice explode we're going to need another high-low marriage!

And they're really not making the most of Oliver atm. He and Tracy together made good listening.

Someone I know is partner to a stand up comedian who gets a lot of work (in normal times) on cruise ships. I was thinking it would be similar to that. Probably compering at the evening entertainment and then doing some sort of routine. I can't imagine there will be much Shakespeare.

I'd like Tracy and Oliver to continue as friends. Plenty of dodgy marriages in Ambridge already.

The Maldives thing is a way of getting Roman out of the way so Tracy can get together with Oliver.

Oliver was a Gent. Married to a niece of the aristocracy. Owned Grey Gables but retired to a villa in Tuscany. He was Master of Hounds.
His mentoring of Ed was philanthropic.
His moving in to Grange Farm can be excused as eccentricity.
The fire was unfortunate.
But marrying Tracy? That's a step too far. (Unless he's standing down to let Freddie assume the mantle of Local Toff, in which case it is allowable)

Did you not feel the chemistry between them, R4? And just think how much joy they could bring to each other's lives. I doubt Tracy has ever seen Tuscany. And when was the last time Oliver ever strolled home after a night out greedily shoving too-hot chips into his face? (Which I like to think Tracy often did pre-covid.)

Admittedly I've not been to the Maldives for 20 years, but "entertainment" was usually whatever CD's the barman fancied or a spot of night diving. At a push, some islanders from a local resort island might arrive to do a quick dance/play music/sell trinkets. Most of the staff are from the mainland and go home to visit their families once every couple of years. I don't think I ever encountered staff with spouses on an island.

The storyline seems so implausible, that I am wondering whether they are confusing the place with Mauritius? That is more of a big resort and entertainment sort of country.

Is it me, or does Roman have a really odd voice?

Is it me, or does Roman have a really odd voice?

Really odd accent I think -trying to hard for cheerful cockney/ Essex wide boy
Hope it's the character rather than the actor

Really odd accent I think -trying to hard for cheerful cockney/ Essex wide boy

Take it from a real Essex girl, Roman does not even make a valiant attempt to sound like like an Essex wide-boy. Just dreadful. If only he would go to the Maldives...Why is it so impossible to engage an Essex actor if you want an Essex accent. It’s not solely a Radio 4 failing, though they are absolute masters at it.

*Thinks back longingly to the early days of Eastenders with dreamy Nick Berry and Leslie Grantham at his best...

I thought Roman's voice was a hint of Brummie, not at all Essex.

Roman is a Brummie surely?

He's remarkably dull, wherever he's from. I could forgive the slow, monotone delivery of carefully read lines if he at least gave the impression of being a deep thinker, or outstandingly talented at something ... I'll just have to believe he's incredibly beautiful.

So the Maldives story was completely pointless then?

Maldives story worth it to get rid of Roman (in whose voice I too detect a hint of Brummie).

So no Blake appearing with the card, though he wouldn't know the address presumably). Maybe Gav will let slip that the prezzie comes from Blake who is still supposed to be in Wales.

The Maldives seemed an unnecessary complication. It would have been more realistic for him to just bugger off to London. It would have been almost as difficult to find accommodation for them all there at short notice. It seemed like padding around the slaves story denouement.

C'mon, Gav...

Except that no one in London can be taking on light entertainment performers/creators right now. Don't know the COVID situation in the Maldives - but Roman would probably be contract-less for months to come if he stayed in England.

What does Tracy want for her children? This new focus on her maternal responsibilities is at least intriguing.

£20?!? That was a shock. Simply dreadful. I’m sure that’s probably true IRL too. Makes me realise how very naive I am.

I get your point about taking on performers in London at the moment but TA isn't really reflecting the current restrictions anyway. Never mind, I'll wait and see if the story is going anywhere.

I googled "Roman".

Quite how they arrived at "his voice" is odd, unless his brief was to "sound dreadful".

I'm not sure why an injured slave would generate income. I would have thought that Philip would PAY Victoria to find Blake a role far away from Ambridge.

I think the point is that Philip has minimised the effects of Blake's injury. The reality is that the poor kid will deteriorate fast on his own with no pain killers or any concessions to his injuries, and will be chucked out on the streets. I only hope Gav and Kirsty go to rescue him.

Roman has been decisively despatched. If he was just going to London they could conceivably continue their relationship. He’s gone and the incident has served to demonstrate that Tracy has got her priorities right - whatever her faults. Paving the way for a relationship with Oliver (whose time with the Grundies is easing the path to a relationship with someone who is a complete contrast to Caroline). I’m not re what Gavin is going to do next, but I don’t think anything can get him of the hook from being completely implicated in everything Philip has done. Poor Kirsty - she really doesn’t have the first idea.

Is everyone forgetting how old Oliver is? Tracy does not need an old man, however nice he is.

Tracy does not need an old man, however nice he is Age is irrelevant - I would argue someone like Oliver is exactly what Tracy needs. He's kind supportive, would be brilliant with Brad and Chelsea, would get on with Bert and has no intention of leaving Ambridge. They also get on brilliantly - Tracy is good for Oliver. A far better bet than someone in an unpredictable business who wants her to drop everything and waft off to the Maldives to live in a holiday apartment or Jazzer (as some have suggested).

Tracy does not need an old man,

Hmm ... So many thoughts! The actor who played Guy Pemberton, Hugh Dickson, died aged 91 a couple of years ago ... If Guy was roughly the same age as his actor then Caroline and Guy would have been very approximately 40 and 68 when they married.

Michael Cochrane (Oliver) was born in 1947, so is 73 - I guess Oliver's a similar age or possibly a little younger. And Tracy is 45.

If life and MN have shown me anything, it's that most people are simply themselves rather than a particular age. And Oliver is (in the 20th century meaning of the word) fit!