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!

The 🔮 thinks not iratepirate.

It also thinks Brine may be packed off on a long cruise/foreign holiday and return with a spring in his step, newly invigorated and with a Wendy Deng type companion in tow.

There's years of fun and internecine fall-out in all this!

And I can just see Charles Collingwood playing it to the hilt!

Now that I would love. A young stepmother really would set the cat among the pigeons.

Another here who is sad to see JennyDahling gone.

I read an interview with her before Christmas - not about the Archers so much as a soft focus "day in the life" type piece. She described life between their homes in France and Sussex and how all her children and grandchildren keep her very busy and she wanted more time with them.

I vaguely assumed at the time that this meant Jenny would become an occasional visitor to the show, as many of the aging actors become in semi retirement. It didn't occur to me that they would kill her off entirely, even thought it does create massive potential for family dramas.

Mind you listening to Brian's close friend on R4 this morning I hadn't twigged that Shula had retired when she went up north. I assumed she also would just appear occasionally. The Archer is well set up to include characters who only appear once or twice a year for short bursts.

Not heresy to me - the Brookfield Archers are tedious at best, even when given "strong" storylines. The Aldridges have been my first family in Ambridge for a very long time.

I think Debbie is the only child Jenny would have confided in, but I can entirely see her wanting everyone to treat her as normal.

I think Brian gave her a horse at around the same time, didn't he?

For me, things have never been the same since the Aldridges left Home Farm. I realise, looking back, that I really stopped listening around then. None of it seemed to make sense. The buyers nobody ever saw. The fact that nobody ever seemed to talk about the house any more.

I hope Brian has one last burst of energy and does something outrageous again.

Are you mad???

Listeners to The Archers are notorious for remembering every tiny little thing and giving the writers hell! Vanessa Whitburn was very funny about it in interviews over the years. Even the august Keri Davies says Archers listeners are scary.

Debbie has been many listeners’ favourite for decades. Recasting the instantly recognisable voice of Tamsin Grieg would NOT pass without a major fuss.

We Mumsnetters are mere dilettantes in the face of some Archers groups. (I mostly just lurk here, but read with interest).

I still miss “real” Tom, Pip, Tony and Hailey.

I reckon Brian and Stella is more likely. (As I said before... I can't help feeling that 'I'm your farm manager' has been shoehorned in too many times not to notice). And (I can't believe I'm saying this) the relationship with a younger woman/employee would be the most likely to provide an abundance of storylines. However... I'm not sure I can realistically see Brian and Stella together (not sure my disbelief can be suspended that far) and I hope it doesn't happen!

Maybe it's just me then. I notice when they change elements of a character's back story, or are inconsisent between SL or within a SL (the later discussions about when Jazzer and Tracy would propose, for example, when both had already chosen New Year's Eve/Hogmanay weeks before, really annoyed me), or make characters do things that are wildly out of character, but I wouldn't notice at all, or barely, if the actor changed. The actor is just the voice, not the real person! I feel like it's on the news when they get someone to voice an interview to protect the interviewee's identity, you don't remember the voice but the words.

Clarrie changed.
Kelly Bright used to play Kate before she went on to bigger things.

It seems 'wrong' though to recast a character once they hit a certain age though.

I always thought the SWs missed a trick in not having Adam and Debbie revert to using their mother's surname at the time of the Siobhán affair, making them both Archers. Maybe they'll do it now.

Previous Clarrie was my favourite, such a gloriously warm voice. Every sentence sounded like a hug (unless she was yelling at Joe and Eddy).

Previous Pip was the daughter in Upstart Crow and the Caitlin Moran character in Raised By Wolves. If I turned away from
the screen for a moment she instantly reverted to Pip in my head.

See also Hailey/Lucy Davies in absolutely anything, including Wonder Woman.

I agree with @Abra1t actually, I am sure that once Jenny and her kitchen were parted she was never the same again.

I wish she hadn't been "faded out" so much in a series of very sad storylines in recent years.

To borrow a phrase from this thread "close friend of Kirsty" Annabelle Dowler IS Kirsty in everything I hear her in. She was playing a dancing girl in My Turn to Make the Tea the other week and I just thought, oh, career change for ole Kirst.

We would definitely notice if there was a new Debbie or Shula. I miss the Real Tom Archer, the ghastly teenage Pip (Phizz), old Kristiffur, and to a lesser extent, the old Hayley and Emmur. Old New Clarrie had a different personality to New Old Clarrie, and I preferred Old New Clarrie.

I can remember other actor changes too. Tony for one, but new Tony has been ok and Kellie Bright is now on EE, which I don't watch.

Regarding diversity in Ambridge, why isn't there a disabled character?

It's a bit soon to be pairing Brian off, but a Stellian or should it be Brella pairing could result in a baby Aldridge.

They moved.

Mike Tucker had 1 eye, and his daughter by second wife has Downs.

Quite. I appreciate that they have disabled actors, and they do a fine job, but surely a village would have someone disabled.

Mike the one-eyed milkman and Bethany with Downs, Emma had mobility issues for a long time after the car crash. Didn’t Christopher have a cleft lip or something?

Then plenty of mental health issues, drug, alcohol and gambling addiction, anorexia, breast cancer, dementia.

And of course Kate, whose foot is permanently lodged in her mouth which must make mobility a challenge.

Who caught Bottled, the afternoon Custardy play yesterday? It was very good, featuring (I’m sure) Philip Moss. Should be compulsory listening for the silly women on here who move their new man in after two minutes.

But @HiccupHorrendousHaddock , they are all temporary disabilities.

Listening to Brian on R4 this morning I get the impression that Charles C has no intention of retiring any time soon and is looking forward to some great Brian storylines.

I have to say that I rather enjoyed the Archers "it's all your fault, not mine" row.

I just had to google after listening to TA earlier.. i was sure Ruaris voice sounded different recently, seems i was wrong! maybe all that shagging J has changed his voice or my hearings on the blink

I’m not sure Kate’s is 😉

But yes, when Mike and Bethany left, the disabled population of Ambridge was pretty much nil.

(And of course Jazzer is sighted in Ambridge)