🧦 Archers thread #133: Woolley socks it to them! Discuss The Archers and its Woolley thinking and plotting 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 would love to take part in the Mysteries, 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/4197199--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-6-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 @ButtonSister and @BorsetshireBanality for title suggestions. I went with their idea in the interests of keeping the title fairly short.

@LillianGish and @FoxgloveSummers made cracking but longer suggestions, which (mashed up) will do a great job of kicking off our new thread.

Evictions (Tom and Tash), depictions (Bridge Farm Christmas card), conniptions (entire cast and crew of the Mysteries), convictions (Philip) and addictions (Alice) - what are our predictions for 2022 in Ambridge? All sure to make this the Best Ambridge Christmas Evah!

This thread should take us through to early January unless something very exciting happens (ha ha, fat chance). My predictions: this is a bit left field, but I wonder if Peggy will offer to buy the shop and flat so Tom and Gnasher (great coinage, whose was it?) can stay put. I don't believe Hazel is sincere about wanting to live in/regularly visit Ambridge. She's always been utterly two-faced and rotten to the core, why would she change now?

The Mysteries will, of course be a triumph and briefly borrowing the🔮 (sorry, Bore!) I expect we are going to hear them at some point over the New Year period.

Over to you!

@LiterallyKnowsBest

Oh dear - having to call a nibbling for company … Definitely been there.

I suppose credit is due to Phoebe for hiding any "what the hell is this about" reaction.

Just caught up with last night’s. Harrison sounded MONUMENTALLY clueless, even Fallon whose script was also pretty doltish had a tone of talking to someone very young or with learning difficulties. He also sounded very alpha course towards the end. I think he is going to get serious religion. Maybe he will get a calling and Shula will realise hers is all bunkum and go off to become a Tibetan nun instead.

I think really all Harrison wants is a family. Fallon made him think he was ok with the idea of not having children but actually he seemed to really want them. He is probably just broody and has mistaken it for a need for religion. Sigh…

I've noticed a different tone to the scripts this week, people seem more loquacious and witty (or attempting it)? Phoebe and Alice had some actual to and fro, so did Phoebe and Lily. I nearly wrote Lizzy as Lily has suddenly started sounding/being written exactly like her mother.

@BowerOfBramble

I've noticed a different tone to the scripts this week, people seem more loquacious and witty (or attempting it)? Phoebe and Alice had some actual to and fro, so did Phoebe and Lily. I nearly wrote Lizzy as Lily has suddenly started sounding/being written exactly like her mother.

That would be because it is written by a different person this week from last. This week Nick Warburton, last week Tim Stimpson.

Haha thanks Asking - I meant, different to those characters/the scripts usual tones, rather than last week. Obviously they do change writers week to week but the tone is still usually pretty sluggish.

With the exception of Brian and Jenny, everyone seems to be able to write good Brian and Jenny. Or the actors are just superior.

Using your argument, Spanish and Portuguese are the same.
Buon Natale e un Felice Anno Nuovo
Boa Natale e um feliz ano novo

I get your point (as would have worked with Spanish and Portuguese examples), but that’s Italian and incorrect Portuguese you’ve posted there @WhoppingBigBackside.

I think Nick Warburton writes good one-off plays. The trouble is that he doesn't really know The Archers, so he gets things wrong about where houses are relative to each other, and whether characters get on together or not, which can be seriously irritating.

Last night, for instance: when did Alice ever get on with Phoebe? They are ten years apart in age (1988 and 1998) and have nothing in common apart from Jennifer having mother-henned over both; Alice is Phoebe's aunt, but that has never made them buddies. If all you are going on is the familial relationship and the fact they both had rooms at Home Farm as children than it seems ideal as a pairing for a night out, but as it actually was when Phoebe was five and Alice was being a Teenager, it isn't. I think the only time they really interacted was in 2006 when Phoebe showed Alice a project she was doing at school and Alice started to ask Adam to plant wild flowers in the margins of the fields (and he wouldn't).

That's interesting, Asking.

I guess - to be generous - Alice has lost a lot of her good friends, her family will all be "on watch" for her and likely to answer her calls at the moment, and they've reached that point where 23ish/33ish feels viable for a friendship when 18/28 for example doesn't so much. I've got cousins (different I know) 10+ years older than me and we only started socialising when I was mid-20s.

I wouldn't have thought Phoebe and Alice getting together was solely Nick Warburton's idea. Don't they have script meeting when they agree on the storylines together?

Yes, every few months they bash out the main storylines, but I suppose the SWs have some discretion about the details. They must have some system for ensuring that if a SW puts a particular character in the script the actor is available that week.

... or rather, for when they record that particular block of scripts, which I think they do every few weeks.

@HaveringWavering, oops.

I liked Lily wittering on.

@Roysnewshirt

I think really all Harrison wants is a family. Fallon made him think he was ok with the idea of not having children but actually he seemed to really want them. He is probably just broody and has mistaken it for a need for religion. Sigh…

Yes, that was my guess too; the religion bit is a displacement activity and he hasn't realised it yet. He's really not ok with not being a father.

Maybe Alan will spot it - he does have the occasional perceptive moment. Then the wheels will come off at Woodbine Cottage.

Rapid bit of shuffling around of partners so Kirsty gets a chance to be a mother after all? I do hope not, but I would put nothing past them.

Looks like someone has given the creative team a kick up the derrière regarding women and ambition.

Felpersham U in play again.

And aeronautical engineering
And Oxford, via Pheobe's meetup

I have been hoping that at some stage Lily dumps Russ and goes off to Uni and enjoys herself with people more her age. But, if Russ agrees with her studying estate management maybe he can see himself as lord of Lower Loxley when Lizzie (dicky heart) croaks it, pushing Freddie out of the way.

@BorsetshireBanality

I have been hoping that at some stage Lily dumps Russ and goes off to Uni and enjoys herself with people more her age. But, if Russ agrees with her studying estate management maybe he can see himself as lord of Lower Loxley when Lizzie (dicky heart) croaks it, pushing Freddie out of the way.

I like your thinking.:o

I also liked Leonard's wacky game, worthy of Sheldon Cooper, without the inevitable Klingon. Also its decisively handled fate.

@TheSilveryTinsellyPussycat

And aeronautical engineering And Oxford, via Pheobe's meetup

Yeah! That was really refreshing.

Nice to hear the younger women helping each other out and having fun.

Do you think the scriptwriters have decided 2022 is the year they shake off TASWAMA?!

Did I really hear Phoebe - a graduate of arguably the most sought-after course in the whole country - say “ooh that sounds so impressive!” in a little girly voice when Lily announced she was going to study estate management at Felpersham?

What happened regarding the end of Freddie’s education? I recall Lily received her A’ Level results the day he was sentenced. If he didn’t take any exams were any plans made for him to do anything at all?

I do remember the eloquently expressed argument made here that as he won’t need employment he doesn’t need qualifications. But the poor boy is surely going to feel … threatened is too strong but maybe less certain of the ground beneath his feet, when his sister gains exactly the knowledge he needs …

ooh that sounds so impressive!

Well, it’s more impressive than moving to Manchester for university and barely making it into any university building because you’re shackled to a predatory fantasist.

@BowerOfBramble

I've noticed a different tone to the scripts this week, people seem more loquacious and witty (or attempting it)? Phoebe and Alice had some actual to and fro, so did Phoebe and Lily. I nearly wrote Lizzy as Lily has suddenly started sounding/being written exactly like her mother.

I really, really don't believe that girls night out scenario.

@HaveringWavering

Did I really hear Phoebe - a graduate of arguably the most sought-after course in the whole country - say “ooh that sounds so impressive!” in a little girly voice when Lily announced she was going to study estate management at Felpersham?

I had difficulty trying to work out which one was which as they all wittered on.

And beyond future plot device needed to keep her in Ambridge, why on earth does Phoebe have no plans?