🏏Archers thread #136: Howzat! Oliver’s bowled a googly, Kathy’s out, Grey Gables left with nightwatchman. Tracy knocked for six. Is Ambridge on a sticky wicket? Discuss The Archers 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 are entranced by new character Adil, 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.)

Apologies if anybody made a thread title suggestion and I missed it. I decided to mark the start of the cricket season in the hope that things will take a turn for the better for poor Tracy.

It feels like months since the last new thread, which was just after Phoebe departed for Scotland. Has she been mentioned since? I can't recall. Not greatly missed, by me, at any rate. Her fish gifts didn't last long.

I can't shake off the feeling that The Archers is going through a long dull patch. I don't feel greatly engaged by anything that's happening at the moment other than Tracy's plight. Such a good actor, which helps, of course.

What's keeping you listening? Habit? Genuinely enjoying it? Over to you!

(PS In the process of starting this thread, I've discovered that our custom-made Archers emoji has gone. You used to get it by typing . Not any more.)

She's awful, isn't she? She's a perkier ( no pun intended) version of Shula.

Has Kathy always been this boring? It seems as though she’s had vastly more airtime than actual (in theory) active characters recently. At least it gave us a break from the boring divorce anyway and clunky, irrelevant, farming explanations regarding slurry.

Also, I really couldn’t care less if Stella gets a dog 🤷‍♀️

Stupendous title, Gasp0de! ⭐️

Kathy? No … Not always boring. She became much less relevant to the Ambridge story after Sid died - though that was some time after they’d divorced and he’d married Jolene. At the very fringes of my memory I remember an exceptionally tense two person episode between her and Sid, while married, concerning her affair with the local policeman. I still have a surprisingly visceral recollection of Sid’s incandescent fury and her pleading. (Was she still a teacher then? Or had she resigned when she became a publican’s wife? Either way, she lost her home and her occupation when Sid ‘threw her out’. At the time I was young enough to find the portrayal of their marital breakdown shockingly brutal.)

What followed was, over the years, a really interesting case study of the feelings that remain after a couple has divorced. When Kathy was raped it was Sid she turned to (which frightened Jolene because Sid honoured Kathy’s understandable wish for privacy.) And it was Sid who quietly pressured the rapist into leaving Ambridge. And it was Kathy, not Jolene, who went to pieces after Sid’s sudden death.

And of course for a long time, (at least, I remember it as a long time) as Pat’s best friend she was the sounding board through which we heard about the inner workings of Bridge Farm and how Pat felt about her life. Although this may also have been the time when Kathy morphed into needy and ever present guest at the kitchen table, endlessly in turmoil over Sid, Jolene, Kenton, Jamie, her job …

So, essentially (and I’m sure I’ve said this about other individuals or couples in the village) the impression she later gave of being (silently) boring was actually a hard-won triumph, after years of trauma and insecurity.

Posted on the wrong thread

Thanks for the new thread @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g - great title.

Kathy used to be an interesting character and she had a lot of good storylines. Her rape (and its aftermath) was particularly movingly done, I remember and as @Totters says, interesting how supportive Sid was of her during that stage.

My main impression of her now is how old she sounds. I suppose other actors age gradually but because we haven't heard her for so long it sounds very jarring to me. Also I think she sounds like Usha, which she never used to.

Listening through force of habit here I think. And eternal optimism that something might improve. I'm enjoying Tracey and Jazzer currently but otherwise agree we are really suffering from limited actors at present. I know they've always been limited to a number per week but it does feel as though we go months without hearing from people instead of the usual occasional drop-ins. And poor writing...

Actually I quite like Stella. But I'm bewildered by her being Natalie from EE - that's not how she looks at all in my mind so that's weird too!

Actually I quite like Stella. But I'm bewildered by her being Natalie from EE - that's not how she looks at all in my mind so that's weird too!

I didn't realise that. Wow! That's not how I imaginer her at all.

Ditto!

I’m prepared to be interested in Stella. Presumably youngish/middling in age, single, intelligent, plugged into Home Farm through work and Brookfield through accommodation - she should have lots of adventures.

And I imagine if we’re being invited to follow her puppy search and dog ownership there will be actual stories, or at least one, springing from that.

Wonder how Rex is getting on, on the river …

Thank you for the new thread.

I missed a chunk of the week's episodes but I think it was a shame that they didn't give the "Kathy" weeks to a SW who had listened (or even written) when she last appeared. I suppose being locked in a cupboard for best part of a decade does things to your character. I still don't understand any part of the Easter Bunny plotline.

The "Stella was Natalie" thing blows my mind. That said, if Todd Carty or Adam Woodyatt would be good actors to add to the village. It seems odd that there aren't any Londoners.

Do we know what Tracey did job-wise before GG??

There are huge number of vacancies in hospitality in the country at the moment (though obviously not in Ambridge)

I'm not sure that it was ever really mentioned.

I always had her down as a full time carer for her dad and brother. Her brother seems more able than I remember being hinted.

She just seemed to appear out of nowhere and the consensus was that she was a great addition to the speaking cast.

So a very subtle reference again to the fact that Ardil is only the front man for the real purchaser of GG.

So who is it?

My money is on Elizabeth and Lower Loxley, perhaps in partnership with the peaky abattoir man (and that's the most unlikely relationship I still can't take it seriously). What do others think?

He is ADIL not Ardil

That’s a truly lovely idea, madroid1. But a) I’m not sure Elizabeth would be able to make such a decision without Freddie - or the LL trustees - being consulted. (Perhaps they have been, of screen?) Don’t know . b) It does look as if it’s 😡Hazel.

But given the really excellent Doctor Who news just announced, I’m prepared to allow a tiny bit of optimism regarding BBC storytelling. Vince buying GG would at least explain just why we’ve been hearing so much from him. It would bring Beth into the village - she’d be sure to have an important role in the new enterprise. Nice thought!

off screen …

It seems odd there aren’t any Londoners.

Well there is Peggy, and there used to be Matt ( sad face)

@TottersBlankly Yes I can see it being Hazel too. The P&O style shutdown is in keeping with her, er general lack of compassion.

Natalie as in Lucy speed? Google says different? I'm confused

I don't understand your question @CloseYourEyesAndSee , but the Stella actor played a character called Natalie in EE and is called Lucy Speed. LS was also in The Bill

I vaguely recall Tracy* working in a petrol station on the Borchester bypass (or maybe going for an interview there at the same time she got the GG job).

• no e according to cast list in spoiler thread

A mistake in the tea room with dire consequences turns out to be a quiche with something unidentified out of a jar which Fallon suddenly realised in the nick of time. And it turned out to be nice anyway. Gripping stuff!

A friend worked for a national player in the hospitality industry. There was a complete refurbishment , and rather than lay off the workforce (very cheap - statutory lay-off rates £31 for five days, then nothing until 3months are up) they made the entire lot redundant (even cheaper, as most had been there less than two years, and it made sure anyone they reemployed would be another 2 years from employee rights).

So I think this lack of sympathy is common in the lower tiers of employment.

It’s why there are laws regarding consultation over pending redundancies, something apparently unknown to the SWs

I thought she’d have used herbal cannabis instead of marjoram. At least we were spared that

It was all a bit of a non-story with us not even knowing what was in the jars. Complete rubbish.

Given the distressing story in today’s Sunday Times of the poor young man who died of an allergic reaction apparently to peanut flour in a pizza delivery - they chose the wrong day for such ridiculous nonsense in TA. Fallon runs a catering business - she couldn’t possibly be carelessly throwing stuff from unmarked jars into food that other people would be buying to eat.

What if she’d wiped out the entire Brookfield clan (😈) and been tried and convicted of manslaughter? Not so “tee hee, let’s have a fun competition for the whole village” then …