Archers thread #142: Kill Jill? Is Ambridge heading for a Tarantino-style bloodbath on Stir Up Sunday? 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, although we do mostly try to be civil about it. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that , 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/4636789-the-archers-spoilers-thread-7-cant-wait-for-702pm-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.)

Well, things have taken a turn for the better in the last few days! The SWs have re-discovered their form and the actors and directors have risen to the challenge. I won't say much more than that for fear of jinxing things. Over to you!

(Thanks to @JanglyBeads for the thread title idea!)

Oh Ben
Ive something in my eye.

Another excellent performance from the Ben actor. Leonard was good too.

The editor is going to run out of youngsters to go off the rails/have accidents/disastrous relationships in a year or two.

It would be the perfect time to (re)introduce some South Africans to the village. I've bumped into a few "we wanted to leave SA" families at teen's social/sporting ents in the past couple of years to make me think that there are a few families moving back to the UK.

Madcats - The editor is going to run out of youngsters to go off the rails/have accidents/disastrous relationships in a year or two.

Good point. There seems to be a bit of an age-gap between Mere Mia and Keira and Poppy and the Helenspawn (Henwy and Jack, I must admit, have great potential).

I'm not entirely convinced that Kate's South African-born children would want to move to Ambridge. I think only Nolly (cheating because I can't remember how to spell her name) was born in the UK.

Fallon's choir is also way too good.

And what's all this "Aw I always thought you two were made for each other!" - Joy and Mick have only been together a few months!

I love thé actor who plays Leonard - he sounds so real - and everyone who appears in a scene with him seems to raise their game too.

Leonard is Paul Copley. I love him as an actor - he was Derek Jacobi's best mate in Last Tango. His voice is wonderful.

Fallon's choir was absurdly professional.

Ah yes, now I remember Abbie did visit at Christmas but was silent and Roy didn’t talk about her at all so I forgot she was there. I think she stayed at Grey Gables rather than with him which is odd. She doesn’t visit her dad at all and you never hear Kirsty saying, for example, that she’s got the house to herself as Roy is away for the weekend visiting his daughter.

I don’t think Sipho has ever been to the U.K. I assume JD & Brine went to SA to see him at some point. Maybe Pheebs will invite her half siblings to Scotland one day.

There was some talk when Nolly last visited - which as I say was a few years ago - about the fact Sipho didn’t come with her and didn’t talk to Kate because he was upset at her for leaving SA and not visiting - I think that was why he was upset? Either way it definitely wasn’t a good relationship with her son. And it wasn’t a super relationship with her daughter either - Nolly spent more time faffing around with drugs and Freddie than with her mother.

Oh Ben 😔. And poor Leonard, holding that secret for Ben is quite a burden.

Love Leonard hope he and the old bat (yes Ive said it again and Im 68 in Jan) spilt up and he buys a house near by and remains in TA. Poor Ben it must have been awful feeling so alone.

I, on the other hand, have no interest in Leonard and no patience with his new role as ‘voice of Jill’. I know he’s been around a good few years but it doesn’t feel earned. He’s nothing to the village - no background or ties, neither dependency nor influence, no connection to anyone except the outgoing Brookfield matriarch. It’s a bit annoying to have him constantly poking his nose into their business as a replacement for her. (Nothing against the actor!)

(Ocado had better come quick, or I’ll be writing more diatribes. Wanting to go back to bed while it still feels worthwhile.)

He does very much feel like "voice of Jill" - except that Jill has severed all ties with Ben so it's slightly odd that Leonard is always round there and no-one has mentioned this. "Thanks for bringing the cake Leonard, but it might have been more helpful if she hadn't stuck her oar in in the first place and then moved out to The Bull." It is her role in this whole business that I find most irritating - Vince I can understand, he's the domineering father of a pair of daddy's girls, but Ben has always been the apple of Jill's eye.

But Leonard did do the decorating for the boys room when they left and helped when Ruth and David had the accident so im not surprised he pops in now and again.

All of that was just the writers’ way of establishing his right to continue hanging around though, surely, @Bubbylana ?

As I see it (and happy to be proved wrong) Leonard - having been brought in by the SWs to give Jill an ongoing conversation outside the family once Carol became silent - has now taken on a new role. The whole Ben thing is a big story and clearly Patricia Greene’s voice wasn’t going to be up to it - so the SWs had to find a way around that. I imagine the ‘natural’ story would have had her supporting and comforting Ben, but that would have been too much script. So instead they had her strop off in a few short words. Now she can be essentially silent (unless or until her voice recovers?) while her emissary performs in her place.

The sad and ridiculous thing is that Carol Tregorran would have been perfect for this task - so much Ambridge heritage and authority. No need for anyone to ask “Who is she?”.

Addendum - actually I suppose the natural story would have had Jill fiercely upbraiding Ben and quarrelling with the family over several episodes (before perhaps changing her mind?). Either way, they’ve swerved that and given her a silent role for now.

I found the SL around Jolene as choir tyrant somewhat improbable. She's always been presented as the voice of reasonableness and sense when Kenton wants to do something stupid, so why would she suddently go power mad? And why would a violunteer choir accept it anyway?

The Carol Tregorran thing is strange isn't it? Jill has a perfectly good home of her own just down the road from which she moved out of for Carol to move in only for her never to be heard of again. It does feel like moving pieces around a chess board except that the SWs have forgotten which pieces are in play. I picture Leonard as the Derek Jacobi character in Last Tango in Halifax and Jill has transmogrified into the cantankerous and unreasonable Celia.

I found the SL around Jolene as choir tyrant somewhat improbable

Yes, she has essentially morphed into the piratical version of Linda Snell- showing little charm and grace while bullying people. Unimaginative storytelling.

Poor Joy. I found her insecurities about Mick and Kirsty quite believable. She seems to have recovered from her encounter with Ben having a breakdown so may be the revelation about Rochelle’s mental health crisis is going to be shelved for another day.

the piratical version of Linda Snell

Just a little post script to the discussion the other day about Joy’s murky past. I happened to glance at “threads I’m on” before listening to Friday’s episode and glimpsed a post mentioning Joy being a psychiatrist in witness protection. I assumed this was a fact that had come out in the episode and immediately thought it all made sense. I was even thinking that’s why she was hesitant and reluctant with Mick (saying I love you, breaking away from the kids the other day) because she was ethically hesitant about being duplicitous forming a relationship when she wasn’t truthful about who she was.

I still fully believed it during the episode - listening to her in the shop wondering aloud if she should go and help Ben, and then hearing her brilliant communication with him on the green.

I was most disappointed (😂) to get to the end of the episode without the big reveal and it was only upon properly reading the thread afterwards that I realised the post had been a joke. I can’t scroll back to see who it was but props to you for a great idea!

• breaking away from the kiss the other day - sorry, I made a confusing typo!

We’ve had so many editors in recent years that inevitably some promising new or re-introduced characters have been sidelined. Eleanor Bron was cast as Carol Tregorran in the Sean O’Connor period. I can only assume either she got fed up with travelling to Birmingham or she was only ever expecting to be in the cast for a short period. She’s 84 now so may not be working as much, especially it if involves commuting.

I like Leonard. I never watched Last Tango so when I hear Paul Copley’s voice I think of his other Radio 4 roles, especially King Street Juniors and Tom Wrigglesworth’s Hang-ups. I find Leonard’s relationship with Ben very credible. Does Leonard have children and grandchildren of his own? Not nearby, I'm assuming, as he never mentions any.

The total failure to mention Kate’s other children is unforgivable. They’ve always been bad, though, at just lobbing in brief, believable mentions of family members who don’t live in Ambridge. They’re either speaking or they’re forgotten.

Of course, children rarely speak before they reach their mid-teens, so it’s not as surprising that we never hear from Abbie.