Archers thread #144: Window pains again! Light relief or dark times ahead for Ambridge in 2023? 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 you’d love to volunteer in the shop with Susan, 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.)

New year, new thread. Many thanks to @LillianGish for the window pains pun! Hoping to hear a lot less from the Caseys this year and a good deal more about farming and how Ambridge is coping with Brexit, cost of living crisis, ageing population and all sorts of credible character-based storylines. Yes, I know, but one can only hope.

Over to you!

It would be wonderful to hear Brian dating again. Give him six months and he could be off for drinks with this one and that one easily. CC would relish it and it would make for much more entertaining SLs than watching him fall into a sad decline eating too much pate, cheese and quince jelly before succumbing to the inevitable cardiac arrest. Obviously, it goes without saying that, I would be horrified if a widower behaved with such abandon IRL…)

Sorry to hear that, @Brefugee. It was a very brief mention of Debbie. I still hope to hear Tamsin Greig at the funeral, but I expect it's unrealistic. She's a very busy and successful actor now!

I've been crying at TA too, but to be honest it takes very little to set me off. (How I empathised with the Duchess of Devonshire's childhood torments at the hands of her sister Nancy Mitford - a little houseless match, if anyone else knows that anecdote.) I feel a bit less foolish weeping over Jennifer than most things, though. The SWs have really raised their game this week.

I would really enjoy hearing Susan tut-tutting about Brian’s unseemly behaviour…

The Aldridges are already such a complicated and dysfunctional family that they don't really need to add anything in to create a gripping inheritance storyline, but it really would put the tin lid on things if Brian re-married and his new wife and her children looked set to inherit a substantial chunk of his estate. I've seen innumerable threads on here from children of first marriages who realise they are not going to inherit the house their parents bought and financed together, or the business they built up together, because one parent has died and the other has re-married and either failed to make a new will or made a positive decision to leave everything to the new spouse, often with a vague statement that they're sure the step-parent will do the right thing by the children of the first marriage.

I've been crying at TA too, but to be honest it takes very little to set me off.

oh same. It's coming up to my dad's 11th anniversary, and my mum is ancient and alone, so I'm finding this all very hard. so to all of us.

Yes, all of that.

And Ruairi revisiting the pain of being only 4, reeling from just having lost his mother and uprooted from all that's familiar to a new Ambridge life with strangers, would only further rile up 'outsider syndrome' insecurities.

Potent mix.

Imagine being Adam or Debbie right now, in the Aldridge / Home Farm context … Simultaneously feeling the responsibility to take care of everyone and being hyper aware that your protected position as Jenny’s children has now gone forever.

How the SWs must be enjoying the prospect of all the layers of Aldridge-ness being ripped apart!

Presumably Phoebe will return (if only off air) too? Very much hoping for Noluthando and Sipho …

I would have found this much harder listening in your circumstances, @Brefugee, but yes, it is a bit close to home, given my parents are very elderly and a long way off, and my Dad's not been in the best of health in recent months.

I'm 'shipping Brian and Joy.

I'm 'shipping Brian and Joy

for the LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY just no. NO!

The obvious candidate as Brian's love interest is Shula, surely.

@WhoppingBigBackside The same thing occurred to me but he thing I caught with interest listening to Charles Collingwood on Radio 4 Today this morning was when he said he'd "lost both my wives" because the actress who plays Shula (whose name escapes me right now) "has retired as well". So maybe we won't see Shula return from Sunderland after all?

Good! He is definitely the strongest character on TAs.

Are you trying to drive us over the actual edge??!

Judy Bennett of course, Charles Collingwood's real life wife.

@Iloveabaconbutty , the Shula actress has retired, but as she is now single there would be room for her to return as the chatelaine of Willow Cottage.

Joy isn't single. Poor Mick doesn't deserve to be dumped.

Stella?

I think Charles Collingwood said on Today this morning that Shula has retired 😥

Although maybe he means as a regular character, and she will still pop in occasionally like Debbie.

I think it's very believable that someone like Brian would be the kind of widower who is absolutely devastated and then can't cope without a woman around and finds a new partner quickly.

Obviously this is heresy on here but maybe this is why I never have the same "excitement" about who is an Archer etc, because this branch of the family is so much more interesting. They're a foul brood aren't they, as evidenced last night.

One Peggy SOTMC, I suspect Kate will decide that Brian needs looking after and will magnanimously move in with him. That could be interesting.

@ILoveShula Ah, I'd no idea until Charles Collingwood mentioned it this morning. I'd assumed that Judy Bennett was maybe taking an acting sabbatical or that the SWs were just "resting" the Shula character for a while while she was away doing practical experience preparation before her ordination. Surely there's got to be more to come on that particular storyline?

I was definitely under the impression that both Brian’s and Shula’s actors were gearing up for retiring from the show, having read something to that effect during lockdown. I’ll try to find the link.

Thank you, @TottersBlankly and @Madcats - I've just listened to that. Charles Collingwood certainly doesn't sound as if he's planning to leave Ambridge any time soon (SWs permitting, of course)! I had understood that he and Judy Bennet were both intending to retire at the same time, but I could well have got the wrong end of the stick.
What strikes me about all this is that nobody is saying anything about Angela Piper's state of health - there are all these rumours I'm reading about saying she has had a severe stroke, but CC just said she "decided to retire". I agree with the idea that there had been more planned for Jenny Daaarling and Brine but the stories had to be curtailed because of Angela Piper's illness. I was so surprised to find she hadn't spoken on air for nearly a year, she managed to make her presence felt very strongly!
I'm looking forward to the series being renamed "The Aldridge's" as they are so much more interesting than "The Archers".

Shula could easily be installed in a Parish in the far north.

Why autocorrect inserted and apostrophe where it wasn't wanted, in "The Aldridges", I have no idea. It just did it again, but I caught it this time!

This may be a stupid question.

Adam's father was Paddy Redmond, but when Jennifer married Roger Travers-Macy, he was adopted by him, becoming Adam Macy.

So why is Debbie called Debbie Aldridge? Surely she should be Debbie Macy, too, as the child of Jennifer and Roger's marriage?

If it was more convenient for her to take her step father Brian's name, why did Adam stick with the surname Macy?

Good grief, autocorrect just added a "d" to my "an", now. How do I stop this?