Archers thread #184: It’s a shambles! And we don’t mean Casey Meats. 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, and of course we are always delighted to welcome back former or occasional listeners/posters. 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're looking forward to Morris dancing on the radio, 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 https://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.)

Right, to business. I can't say I'm delighted that the focus is on Rochelle and Casey Meats at the moment, because I'm not. All far too peripheral to Ambridge and too new. As I say ad nauseam, more farming storylines please, and where are all the long-standing members of the cast? The discussion about inheritance tax in The Bull the other night was a bit clunky, but what a refreshing change to hear two familiar voices, both farmers, talking about farming-related stuff, even if BBC balance meant they had to be challenged by two non-farmers, and even if it is months after the Budget introduced these changes. Ah well.

I was tempted to put one of my Dad's terrible jokes into the thread title as an oblique reference to George's coffin-making idea, but it wouldn't have made sense to anyone else. He loved referring to the cemetery as the Dead Centre of the island, so I was pondering something about Grange Farm becoming the Dead Centre of Ambridge. It could happen yet. Emma and Ed could provide willow branches and Clarrie could sit in the kitchen weaving them. Surely it must be similar to knitting?

Finally, if the SWs are lurking and looking for new storylines, it's been very dry recently and there have been lots of wildfires in rural areas. There was a bad one on Gaspmother Island a few days ago. Many farmers are very worried about this at the moment, as reported on Farming Today last week. But what am I thinking! This is a story that only works in a rural setting, so in the current incarnation of TA, it's not soapy enough.

Over to you!

but which show ordinary people just doing, well, stuff.

Well, if you regularly log on to some one else's lap top without their permission, alter photographs by photoshopping, including considering the possibility of adding in dead relatives who weren't at the event, this is just like the Flower and Produce show or the village cricket.

Ordinary people just doing, well, implausible stuff. I don't need to be interested in every storyline but as most of us have said many times over the years when it's not in character and even worse not in line with reality, it breaks the fourth wall and we remember we're listening to a radio drama, not actually eavesdropping in The Bull or the tearoom or standing behind David and Ruth in the milking parlour. The Archers at its best builds a plausible and engrossing storyline over years and years, involving various characters all behaving in character, said characters having been established and developed over years and in some cases decades. It can't be easy to do this, but it's felt in recent years as if they're not trying all that hard to do that any more. New people dominating storylines for weeks on end. Limited number of characters speaking, which I suppose is understandable if budgets have been cut, but they don't even mention the other characters, so we lose touch with what's going on across the village. Very little of the rural and agricultural background that made TA so distinctive. Soapy stories that could be happening anywhere. Disappointing.

The wedding photo plot is odd. Surely if you lost your wedding photos in a flood and you were that bothered about replacing them you would contact friends and family who had been at the wedding and ask if they had any photos from the day they could copy/donate. The sentimental aspect of wedding photos is that they record a time and a place with friends and family - they are so much more than just a photo shoot of the bride and groom? Or is it really a story about photoshopping photos? Are the animal activists going to photoshop the abattoir footage?

Totally agree @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

and I really don’t want to have this dominance by a few characters all the time. I felt the same when we were hearing way too much of Helen when Rob was dying.

it’s nice to dip in and out and they can just have everyday stuff going on. We don’t need the PSAs either

I was at least relieved last night that we didn’t hear Joy yet again, who now seems to be on permanent duty as a cast member (DH, who was in another room, says I audibly shouted the other day when TA started and Joy's was the first voice we heard). But the Malik's wedding-photo non-story is mighty tedious. Over now, though, thank goodness. I hope?

I agree. But those things are interesting when ou know the characters. People who you have listened to over time, know how they’ll react to stuff etc. Not new characters who seem to be appearing in every flipping episode.

One of the great joys of the Flower and Produce show (and other annual events) is that we get to hear (and hear of) regular characters (speaking or silent) behaving predictably for the most part, but usually with some slight twist. For decades Jill, Jennifer and Freda Fry would enter the food categories and as they were all extremely good cooks they all hoped to win. Same with Bert Fry and various keen gardeners in the flower and produce categories. The twist would be that some complete novice would occasionally win, or a silent character like Jean Harvey or Hilary Nokes, or someone we knew had bent the rules like Eddie or Joe Grundy, and we would listen to Jill pretending to be a good loser or Jennifer fulminating to Brian about a suspected breach of the rules which the judges had missed, or Bert Fry grumbling in The Bull about his onions not even getting a Highly Commended. I love all that.

A really good afternoon play can establish characters very quickly and make us care about them, but TA isn't an afternoon play, it's a continuing drama serial. The writers have the enormous luxury of being able to show character development in real time. It feels at the moment as if they've lost that. It is after all called The Archers, not Ambridge, and they have plenty of people called Archer or related to Archers to feature.

Honestly the Malik storyline I just don't get it... yes it's sad the pics were destroyed in the food but you wouldn't recreate them!? Just ask for any pics or say what a shame...
I do enjoy TA but it feels like a slog at the min

if this whole photo thing is so we can find out the family history it makes it even worse

all the sl qt the moment are so contrived to make them ridiculous

the flood was stupidly done but it gave the opportunity for the maliks to become firm friends with the snells I suppose

Ultimately though the new characters interacting isn’t interesting but where they are with longstanding characters (Henry/Chelsea etc) it is a better introduction.

azra as the doctor is a good in. Joy doesn’t have that

In the past 6 months, Jill, Josh, Pip, Will, Alistair, Adam, Paul and Stella have appeared in a single week of episodes (Ian and Usha not at all). I don't care about Denise being AWOL but I would expect the others to at least be referenced (that's half the potential cricket team on that list!).

We've had 16 weeks of Joy, 15 of Helen, 14 of Emma and 13 of Pat.

All I want from the slaughterhouse storyline is for it to lead to Freddie being shown to have a bit of nouse, meaning that Lizzie begins to hand over the running of Lower Loxley to him.

I'm trying to decide which is dafter: Wondering aloud whether your mother would like her dead parents added to your re-created wedding photos or suggesting that moving onto a narrowboat to live with a bloke you barely know is great rehab with an arm in a sling.

I suppose it is a contrived way for Rex to notice how Saskia is hounding Rochelle and have him moan to the village that he's having to buy a load of vegan food, but really!

Also how thick is Rex. Joy has told him Rochelle is vulnerable which was a coded way to say be careful yet he takes her word for it that all is good and moves her in before they’ve officially started dating

atm the behaviours are so bizarre it makes the whole thing like a tv soap and I don’t watch those for that reason!!

atm the behaviours are so bizarre it makes the whole thing like a tv soap and I don’t watch those for that reason!!

This is the crux of the matter for me.

Surely, if the Wedding photos are being recreated the faces will be the wrong ages. Don't know how soon the Maliks had children, but assuming Azra had finished her medical training - so 24ish - before they got married, then had children who are now teenagers, Azra is probably late 30s. I think faces & bodies change quite a bit between mid twenties to late 30s and after having children.

And what about backgrounds to photos? A lot of Asian families where I live, have a religious Nikah at a mosque then go to one of the local parks where there are flower beds, a fountain etc, as a background for nice photos. How can they recreate that?

What's the point of a "false" record that's not going to accord with memories or that's going to create false memories?"

These things may have been explained in TA, I tend to find something else to do when some characters are in a scene.

I thought we knew azra is in her 40s and a good decade older than her brother?

agree it seems really odd. Surely a better suggestion would be to go back to Pakistan (if that’s where wedding was) and have a party and some sort of vow renewal.

I can think of nothing worse than trying to squeeze into my wedding dress and have photos now when I looked amazing in it at 25 and I’m going to look like an overstuffed sausage if I have photos now

but no one seems to age in ambridge 🤷🏻‍♀️

"but no one seems to age in ambridge"

Not so much don't age as don't grow up.

assuming Azra had finished her medical training - so 24ish - before they got married, then had children who are now teenagers, Azra is probably late 30s.

I thought Zainab was late teens,18 or 19. We know she didn't go to university. Azra must be in her early to mid 40s, even if she had married and got pregnant as soon as she finished her training.

There seemed to me an implication she married young - I can’t quite see where the medical training fits in or what their timeline is. It’s like they are purposefully muddling the story to try and elicit interest but, as with the mystery of Rochelle, I don’t think what they come up with will be all that interesting.

perhaps they are going to come up with some mad SL that she only studied to become a doctor after khalil got sick and fast tracked to where she is in an entirely implausible way

It's possible to continue medical training while married. I know a doctor whose husband supported her training by working as a gardener then pursued a different career himself. An Indian family I used to know had a semi-arranged marriage (the daughter had total power to accept or refuse) and part of the deal was that her husband's family supported her medical training.

Yes - i think that sounds like what happened as it does sound like she was young when they married and it was rushed. Maybe she had already started uni. I’m just unclear where this all happened.

pa malik was clearly brought up in Pakistan from what has been said and his accent but it’s not clear with azra

Well of course it's possible to get married and continue training but for Azra still to be in her 30s she'd have had to be pregnant at around 20. We know Zainab is old enough to have gone to, but didn't go to university.

I'm trying to decide which is dafter: Wondering aloud whether your mother would like her dead parents added to your re-created wedding photos or suggesting that moving onto a narrowboat to live with a bloke you barely know is great rehab with an arm in a sling.

The latter- the first makes no sense at all but it's plausible in a sort of wouldn't it be a laugh way for a nano- second - a bit like photoshopping them on to the moon. And Khalil isn't an adult.

I don't think she's in her 30s. I wasn't responding to that.

Having gone to great lengths to stress how muslim the family Malik are (e.g Azra driving some distance to buy halal meat, Pa Malik going to the Felpersham mosque… Khalil being cross at not being allowed to fast) isn’t going to great lengths to get cherished wedding photos recreated a bit haram?

I suppose everybody else in Beechwood is happily widowed/separated/divorced (doesn’t bode well for TomTash).

It’s just struck me that Rochelle could fall from Rex’s gangplank, to be swept away in the hitherto unnavigable Am. This has cheered me up no end.

I hated the wedding photo story to start with (and I think it’s still a little implausible that Jim came up with the idea), but they said that they’d put Khalil and whatever the annoying girl is called into some of the pictures too. That made me think that what they had done is to make a sort of parody of the wedding photos rather than attempting literal copies, knowing they can’t be replaced - adding some humour into them. I’m not sure I am explaining what I mean properly, but if I consider it like this, it’s actually a very touching thing to do, and could bring back memories of the day, despite the photos not actually being of the day.

Jim/robert, whoever I can’t remember but someone too serious - I’d have attributed the idea to Chelsea or jazzer, or even Freddie.