🎄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?

[quote Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]@SunnySausage, it's worse than that, we have to wait till Tuesday 2pm (or 7pm). Those bastards are keeping us hanging on for an extra day next week. The payoff is we get a Friday episode. Friday next week is New Year's Day and the 70th anniversary of the very first nationally broadcast episode of The Archers, so I'm expecting fireworks. Having said that, I'd be OK with a nice quiet episode of change counting ...[/quote]
Next Tuesday??

Yes, Tuesday 7pm (not 2pm, that's the repeat of tonight's episode). My mistake.

Perhaps Roy thought about how rubbish he had been yesterday, not taking her worries seriously, so came round to talk about it.

I feel that in that case, he might have noticed that Philip's car/van showed that she was not alone, and quietly gone away again rather than hammering on the door demanding to speak to her.

But Plot, obviously.

Reliable Roy saves the day!
Great episode.

A night and day had passed since the LL event. Kirsty could have said more to Roy in the interim, and could have been speaking to him before Philip cane home. She’s had time to have a good think.

With Great Pleasure Christmas edition with the Archers cast. R4, 7 o'clock this morning! (Or at your leisure ...)

🎄Merry Christmas everyone!

Ah PoulePouletteEternellement has beaten me to it!

Merry Christmas all.

Did anyone else think Eddie was going to have a heart attack when he slowed down and asked Clarrie to stop?

SW1 - last script meeting before the festivities people, have a virtual mince pie!
Intern - you’re on mute (mumbles) again.
SW1 - sorry, sorry, sorry, lucky I’m a creative not technical isn’t it or we’d never get on the air!
Intern - (smiling brightly) I’m astonished we ever do!
SW1 - now you’re on mute ha ha! Pressing on, what about Christmas episodes?
SW2 - I thought the usual festive stuff- Freddie burns Lower Loxley down during the Christmas reading, Vince defrauds Elizabeth of all her money, Linda relapses, Eddie diagnosed with a terminal disease, David just generally moans about stuff, Adam very, very tired, Pip falls under a tractor. And for light relief Russ and Lily marry.
Intern - haven’t I heard you say “we’re not Eastenders” before? That all sounds a bit Wolford rather than Ambridge to me. Why not Freddy saves the day, Philip gets put away, Eddie stars in the Christmas show with a touching tribute to Joe, Vince shows a heart of gold and Shula quite unexpectedly dies of leprosy?
SW1 - why not indeed, let’s go with that, merry Christmas to you all.

Excellent episode @Chemenger,i look forward to it. Merry Christmas everyone. The turkey's in the oven and I'm off for a frosty dog walk.

With Great Pleasure Christmas edition with the Archers cast. R4, 7 o'clock this morning! (Or at your leisure ...)
I woke up to this on the radio & had to have a lie in to catch it all - it's worth a listen if only to hear Jazzer's singing. It made a very good start to the day.

Yes. His real voice is so lovely and melodic - would have been nice to have that on TA, but I get that the Jazzer voice is easily recognisable.

Some of them are so talented in addition to their Archers life. Ben Norris' biog takes ages to read.

Roy again underlines the benefits of the kind, reliable, though may be unexciting, man. I know people with long AmBridge memories are down on Roy but since I have been listening (5/6 years) he has been exemplary.

I think he was not popping over to Kirsty to go scavenging for whatever he could get...it was Christmas Eve and as he lives alone (apart from an irritating daughter who we don’t hear anything about (thank God) and he probably thought he would just pop over to see his closest friend for a mulled wine and a bit of a chat.

I thought the penny dropped for Kirsty a bit quicker than it would have done IRL. She wouldn’t usually have made the mental leap required from Philip helping out homeless boys to turning them into slaves in 30 seconds flat, I don’t think, but I suppose it all had to be handled within 13 mins so I can overlook that as I say a huge boop for Roy! So proud...

Merry Christmas! A most excellent episode. I might even listen to it again.

Merry Christmas everyone!

And thank you @Chemenger - most excellent! I'm now looking forward to the New Year's Day 70th anniversary special, when Shula disintegrates, piece by piece, until there is nothing left of her!

Philip did specifically tell Kirsty that he paid them nothing, so the leap to "but that means they are slaves!" wasn't as enormous as it might have been.

He even emphasised it, because when he said it she told him she knew that was another lie, because she'd helped him do the books and those had wages and so on in them, and he then told her those were the books for the authorities not the real ones. That was when she said "but that's criminal!" and pennies started to drop.

It was maybe a bit quicker than most but for someone with a lot of social conscience such as she, maybe not.

I heard the Special this morning too, it was absolutely what I'd have chosen to wake up to this Christmas morn. Ben loves Jill, wonderful. And Jazzer's actual singing, beautiful.

We haven't had any hint of Shula disintegrating, have we (looks hopefully around)?

criminal proceeds eviction for kirsty?

That With Great Pleasure episode was absolutely marvellous, thanks for the reminder! Strongly recommended. It's got me through my vegetable peeling with a smile.

Thanks also to the intern, which I hope @Chemenger will pass on.

29 posts left on this thread. I think it'll last till tonight. Title ideas? I'm thinking I'll start it tonight, so perhaps some reference to St Stephen's Day, i.e. Boxing Day, and St Stephen's Church, but I can't quite see how. Any clever references to King Wenceslas possible?

Merry Christmas, everyone!

@redcandlelight

criminal proceeds eviction for kirsty?

Oh, I wish. But I doubt they will. They don't often do things that make me happy. See e.g. 'Lynda recovers (unnaturally rapidly, at that) from her injuries', 'Pip fails to die in childbirth', 'Will doesn't blast Ed to bits with handy shotgun' and numberless other missed opportunities to make Ambridge a better place.

Well, Lynda recovering made me happy

...

Hmph!

Slow evening ...

And I have no ideas at all for a thread title ...

Tomorrow for new thread. Knackered here now!

Oh, sorry! Wasn't casting aspersions, just realised it was Friday evening and No Episode.