America, Presenting Your New Addiction: ‘The Archers’
Tim Teeman is the author of In Bed With Gore Vidal: Hustlers, Hollywood and the Private World of an American Master is published by Riverdale Avenue Books/Magnus
For over 60 years, the world’s longest running radio serial has kept its dedicated British audience agog. Now, with fresh chaos brewing after a botched wedding, it’s the perfect time for Americans to get the habit.You have, it is true, missed 17,336 episodes of BBC Radio 4’s long-running soap opera The Archers. The good news, America, is it is never too late become an “Archers addict.” And you will.
Don’t let the 17,336 episodes you have missed put you off. You have missed a lot of milking of cows, pints of “Shires” drunk at The Bull public house, sheep (so many sheep), just over 60 lambing seasons, and the odd tragedy, like Grace dying in the barn fire (1955), poor John in a tractor accident (1998), and the suicide of gamekeeper Greg (2004).
And now, finally, a plum moment to tune in for first-timers to the world’s longest-running radio soap opera: a hideously botched non-wedding. After months of grand planning, in Thursday’s episode Tom Archer, sausage magnate—a proto-J.R. Ewing with pork as his obsession rather than oil—ended his relationship with Kirsty just as they were about to exchange vows. He felt, he told his grandmother, that after the death of his big brother John he became the “heir not the spare” in his family, and the prospect of marriage suddenly made him feel like the adult he was thrown into becoming.
Kirsty, understandably, was not impressed at being dumped on her dream day, and her bereft wail filled the church. The reaction of The Archers Twitter-faithful was summed up by one listener: “Oooohhhhhhhh.”
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An American of taste
An American of taste
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: An American of taste
Did not see that one coming...
I figured this would be about some turncoat singing the praises of cricket or Marmite...
I figured this would be about some turncoat singing the praises of cricket or Marmite...
Re: An American of taste
Did the actors lose their English accents so they could sound normal, like Americans?