🎄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?

I like Oliver but I think I would rather they did that than have him in a relationship with Tracey. Oliver is much too nice a man to do that to her.

I’m hoping for an arrest as the 70th celebration. Surely it now seems like Philip and Gavin have got away with it and Kirsty thinks she’s going to live happily ever after - so that can only mean anniversary Police action 🤞🏻🤞🏻 (Less hopeful for Kirsty’s devastation but it feels like her niche in the Archers is as collateral damage)

I flocking well hope not. Sentimental bollocks. They have the square root of frack all in common

I agree, I don't see them running the course as a couple. I could see them becoming good friends with Oliver more of a paternal figure and I'd quite like to see that.

70th Anniversary Issue: ? but I think it may be Philip's arrest and Kirsty's despair, rather than Oliver killed off. With a side-bet on Alice having a riding accident on the restive horse with a dodgy spine, and a miscarriage

Combine the two? Alice falls and breaks neck/has miscarriage when horse is startled by Philip making a run from the serious crimes squad?

Or Rob coming back with a Jack Nicholson style wide grin....

@NomadNoMore

Or Rob coming back with a Jack Nicholson style wide grin....

Please no!

Was that a stupendous dig at Michaela Coel that I just heard on Ed Reardon???

Missed that but it's wedding bells for Vince and Lizzard.

Actually, I found myself liking Vince.

What’s this I’m feeling suddenly? Oh, it’s a soft spot for Vince.

I must say, I'm warming to Vince. He came out of that far better than David. Also, good on Freddie and Eddie (surely they'll be a double act at some point). I've heard trails on R4 for an Archers-themed 'With Great Pleasure' for Christmas - is that essentially going to be the LL show? It seems to feature Trevor Harrison as Eddie Grundy.

Also, good on Freddie and Eddie

Thank God Eddie agreed to help out without a murmur and we were spared some dreadful scene of Freddie being made to beg and offer him wild bribes such as a year’s supply of Shires...

Vince is turning out to be quite the romantic hero...hope his mother is too much of a battleaxe!

I thought that Vince was pretty funny. He set the agenda with his "let's not talk about work" because he knows that it is a bone of contention. Then bored on about David's pet topics - being mummy's boy and Pipsqueak's proud parent.
Vince did exactly what he did with Lizzie: researched his prey, engineered a meeting and then schmoozed. Worked both times.

I must say, I'm warming to Vince. He came out of that far better than David

Vince ran rings around David because yet again David is convinced he knows best and that he his right. Its always been one of David's biggest failings and is exactly how Vince bettered him in business in the first place.

I thought Freddie handled Eddie brilliantly. Apologised appropriately (no scheming or bribery, as PPs have said) and then got on with the job in hand with a good level of enthusiasm. Even had the flexibility and presence of mind to change tack when it became clearly obvious that the original reading was dreadful. Maybe showing the precursor of management skills he’ll need when LL is under his command...

Also agree that Vince did a good job with David

Strange how the thought of a capable Freddie taking on LL with wit and energy (and a strong partnership with Lily) has brightened my day!

Perhaps Elizabeth is feeling that, just as much as romance, she needs to start building a (secondary) life away from LL? Vince is obviously robust enough - mentally and financially - to provide almost limitless entertainment.

*Even had the flexibility and presence of mind to change tack when it became clearly obvious that the original reading was dreadful.

I did wonder whether Freddie had actually read the thing before he handed iot to Eddie, or if it was Roman's idea entirely.

Who did choose the poems and readings, anyway?

Bold fail. Sorry!

We've heard so little about the show that I don't think we know. Could have been Roman, could have been the readers, could have been a bit of both. Certainly wasn't Freddie, though, from the sound of it!

@Prestissimo

I thought Freddie handled Eddie brilliantly. Apologised appropriately (no scheming or bribery, as PPs have said) and then got on with the job in hand with a good level of enthusiasm. Even had the flexibility and presence of mind to change tack when it became clearly obvious that the original reading was dreadful. Maybe showing the precursor of management skills he’ll need when LL is under his command...

I thought Eddie handled Freddie brilliantly

Early in lockdown 1 we heard Freddie persevering with mending a toilet, and succeeding (though IIRC it took him a week). I hoped then that Freddie would start to come good. He had planned the tour of hidden places (but got scoffed at when it failed). So I would have hoped he would be able learn from that, so the event would go better this time.

I'm liking that the SWs are subverting the stereotypes they created of Tracy and Vince.

Roy seems to specialise in trying to soothe Kirsty when she has made a mistake about some man or other.

A fine example of people talking at cross-purposes / not listening to each other.
I really wish the SW didn't do it.

Freddie taking on LL with wit and energy (and a strong partnership with Lily)

Pass the sick-bucket, someone, ta. Oh... it seems to have been used already.

Freddie taking on LL and kicking Lily and her limp appendage out, on the other hand, I could go for. I suppose. I would still rather it burned down along with pore widdered Elizabeth, but one cannot have everything.

I don't care who kicks Russ out, as long as someone does.

But I very strongly object to Freddie taking sole possession of LL by reason of his own appendage.

Disappointingly dull tonight. And how I miss the annual 'accidental meeting in a queue at Underwoods while Christmas shopping' event. Aldridges and Bellamys generally made that fun. Brookfield Archers, not so much.

Hurrah! So lovely to hear the reassuringly calm voice of Roy...always so good in a crisis!

Poor Kirsty! The worst she can possibly imagine is Philip having an AFFAIR...Do we think she’ll find out tonight she’s married to a slave trader?