Helen is the first Archer to be eaten alive. Rob’s crushed wife is now so far down the boa constrictor you can hardly discern her dissolving outline. Just imagine how it feels, when first your toes and then your heels are slowly eaten bit by bit. No wonder she detested it. The pain is exquisitely relentless. This week’s turn of the screw was the arrival of her mother-in-law, who is quite alarmingly charming. If you have hopes, prepare to have them dashed. Even the BBC’s continuity announcer snapped and spoke for England. “Go on, Kirsty!” she cried as Helen’s best friend tried to grab her vanishing ankles and hang on. (I am rather partial to The Archers’ continuity announcers, anonymous earwiggers who enjoy joining in).
Lilian is the Camilla Parker Bowles of Ambridge, happiest with a stiff G&T in her hand and a highly strung hunter between her knees. “Spirit! I like that in a filly!” as Justin Elliott said before offering her a rather unspecific job with a liberal dress allowance and a company credit card. His intentions are, of course, dishonourable. He is trying to weasel his way into Ambridge life and for that you need an Archer for lubrication. Absolutely everyone in Ambridge is an Archer or related to one. Except, of course, the Grundys, who work for them.
Old is the new new in Ambridge. The Fairbrother boys are going into pastured eggs, which are so old-fashioned they are the latest thing. Unlike free range hens, who stare morosely at the weather and decide to give it a miss today, pastured hens are wild and free. They like to roam the wold with the wind in their hair and you won’t believe the size of their wedding dresses. Their colourful caravans are called egg mobiles – like pope mobiles but less celibate – and their eggs are ecstatic. Tom Archer plans to wrap these hysterically happy eggs in black pudding and sell them to the cognoscenti. “They are,” he says firmly, “very fashionable in London.”
Critical insight of the month? Brian on Brief Encounter: “Doesn’t the doctor strike you as a bit of a wuzz?” Discuss loudly and at length. A simple yes is not acceptable.
A month in Ambridge returns on 16 March
