Archers thread #197: Runs, Ambridge, runs! 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 find it credible that Kate, who changed continents twice to get away from her own children, has now morphed into Grandmother of the Year, 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.)

Well, Finlay may have made good his escape, but we're all still stuck inside the Borsetshire forcefield. The cricket team is rising phoenix-like from the ashes but will now be The Bull's team, not Ambridge's. Will Alice and Rex make a go of things? Will George cope with a month off the booze? Will the real Brian Aldridge re-appear? Will we hear a bit more about farming? We did get a lambing scene the other night, which was good.

Over to you!

P. S. The pointless new AI title generator MN has introduced in spite of absolutely nobody ever asking for it wanted to call this thread something like Discuss The Archers here, no spoilers. I won't be following its suggestions.

Exactly, I love her directness but thought she went a bit far last night [it’s not real, it’s not real]

Actually - having thought about it, I can see the Old Skool purpose in taking the horse box to the Dower House. It takes other people there - regularly.

When Tiger and Pusscat were running Amside Properties together, with Brenda in their employment, the writers knew what they were doing. The house was a focal point in the village story - lots went on there. Recently we’ve only ever really heard the two residents squabbling there - so it was mostly another squandered opportunity.

I’d like to think things will pick up now - but continuity is so bad these days, we’ll probably find the horse box living with Meg next week, with no explanation or acknowledgment …

Did I understand correctly that Tracey asked Justin whether they can leave the horse box parked at his property indefinitely because there's nowhere else to park it when it has been done up?

That’s what it sounded like - unbelievable!

Tracey was just taking the maximum advantage of the moment - she's a canny operator!

Yep, exactly. She saw the opportunity to use the situation to her advantage, loved it. Justin told her she'd actually helped him out big time. Good for Tracy!

Ah, the sweetheart of Ambridge.

DH is frail and prone to falls. He didn’t want to join a group nor have a befriender visit. The localish lot who organise this stuff don't provide transport to the group anyway, and the only befriender was a man recommended by a friend of mine. The localish lot don't do organised befriending since Covid and neither does the RBL.

This is all getting ridiculously melodramatic.

Old Brian would have been way more Emma. He’d have marched Ruairi to the cop shop himself and bought the most skilled defence barrister in the country. While at the same time pulling every string he could. There’s no way he’d ever have put himself in George Grundy’s power. It’s very hard to feel convinced by this nonsense.

I couldn't agree more, @TottersBlithely. Utterly stupid development of the SL.

Obviously Ruairi’s past as a sex worker (which Brian only found out about a couple of days ago) is not helpful to his case - particularly when he comes from privilege. But any competent advocate could make a thing of his traumatic start in life and the great gaping wound it’s left in his moral fibre. The emotional support he relies on from Alice, and the shock of potentially losing that. Jenny's death. What looked like a scuffle in The Bull on NYE - and the fear of potentially losing his health-compromised father as well. Etc …

Easy-peasy. And Ruairi still gets a farm at the end of it.

I get the impression Brian is being played as "getting old and losing his marbles". Perhaps Carol Tregorran has been raised from oblivion to provide some sort of contrast?

That was a weird scene..so Brian is giving George money and George hasn't even had to blackmail him for it? What was the point of the recording.

Is Brian just terrified Ruairi is going to fess up to George? He hasn't thought about how much Ruairi sees of Neil now though, he can't keep him away from everyone related to George.

Carol doesn’t sound very old. How old is the actual actress?

I think Brian is behaving very oddly - I’m not sure what he’s trying to achieve. Surely he would just give George a wide berth and hope Ruairi does the same, though as George himself pointed out - that’s not easy in a small village. Brian seems to be having some sort of crisis of confidence - berating himself for being a terrible father to all his children earlier in the week and now somehow seeming to recognise himself in Tracy’s description of Justin’s investor having problems with her 21-year-old despite having pots of money. And then using some of his own pots of money to try and buy off George. It just doesn’t feel like something Brian would do - any of it. I can see why some posters are suggesting dementia setting in - I think it’s just poor writing. It feels like Brian is being written by someone who doesn’t know him at all.

Alan being tired and not looking well is foretelling bad news isn't it?

Hope not, always liked Alan. Especially since he stood up to Peggy.

Yes I feel lately that Brain has really been feeling the weight of being a widower and a lone parent. He's struggling without Jennifer.

I have this picture of George's business really taking off and becoming mega-successful as a result of Brian's investment in it. Then, with Justin's support, Chelsea will end up as CEO of an incredibly successful chain of mobile hairdressers, and she and George will end up as the village entrepreneurs of the future, taking a paternal/maternal interest in Archer offspring and helping them with their business startups.

Oops typo. Brain! 😆 My own brain is fried!

Others were discussing this earlier in the thread and it seems nobody knows for sure, but Mia Soteriou's first acting credit on IMDB is for playing a nurse in 1983. It's stated there that she trained as a musician and she seems to have had has a parallel career as a composer, singer and songwriter, so we're probably talking about more than school piano lessons. She also did a degree in English Literature, so she may have had a later start to her acting career. A birth date of 1954 is out there, but I don't know whether this is just the internet taking a guess. It seems plausible.

Carol Tregorran, however, is far older than that. She came to Ambridge in 1954, according to the BBC, so she has to be in her 90s. I am currently spending time with a good many extremely elderly women, including my Mum who is 93 and very frail, and I can tell you that none of them sound as hale and hearty as Carol did last night, even the ones who actually are still very mobile and active - and we have explicitly been told that Carol isn't. Very odd to bring Carol back, to tell us that she's struggling and then to cast someone who doesn't sound right. Mia Soteriou is also credited with working as a vocal coach so if the director had thought it important she could probably have sounded older and frailer. Clearly nobody did think it was important, but it's yet another thing that takes out of the story and reminds us that it's not real. <glances around for soap, preparatory to washing mouth out>

I adore Mia Soteriou’s voice, and was delighted when she joined the cast. And I’d be perfectly happy with a sprightly and youthful 90 odd year old. But it sounded ridiculous last night when Alan reported that Carol ‘seemed very frail now’ - when that wasn’t what we actually heard.

Compare and contrast Carol T with Alan Bennett who - at 91 - genuinely does sound very frail, alas. Just been listening to him interviewed on R4. Great to hear him but he does sound his age.

Agreed. I like her voice too and she could have been an excellent addition to the cast. A retired, professional single woman renting Glebe (after Carol's off air demise) as her country bolthole as respite from her busy life in town where she goes to the opera and galleries and dinner parties.

Warming to my theme ... she could be a retired GP who teams up with Azra on a MH initiative to show people how nature and exercise - a community allotment and a walking group - can help improve their lives.

Instead we've got permanently knackered Alan talking about how frail she sounds 🙄

Do I remember correctly that Alan was perfectly fine with Helen saying he looked tired, but when Carol said it he seemed insulted?

"Difficult" woman, witch, bossy etc - the patriarchy/misogyny continues. Is there one in each generation - Carol, Kate, maybe Chelsea?

It’s the law, @Agapornis …