My God, is it safe to come out now? Has everyone stopped shouting? As Ernest Thesiger said at the battle of Ypres: “My dear, the noise and the people!” He passed the time doing petit point embroidery, which distracted him from both.
The gaggle of pointless celebrities rounded up for jury service at Helen’s trial all shouted at once (“Stop it! Stop it all of you! That’s enough!”) They were ably led by Nigel Pargetter, whose lung power is legendary. Defenestrated from The Archers, the length of his scream still holds the record for anyone falling off anything anywhere ever. He was recalled for one night only to play Dennis, a misogynist abattoir manager. “I know what it takes to push a knife into muscle.” “Thank you, Dennis,” said Nigel Havers repressively.
With any luck, having made a perfect pig’s ear of the verdict, all the jurors left on the last train from Borchester. With Rob’s father, Bruce, who was ever on the verge of bursting, Helen’s lesbian lawyer, Anna, who was going through some churning turmoil of the heart and, leaving for fresh woods and pastures new in Walford, Sean O’Connor, The Archers’ exciting editor. Who realised, when he first arrived in the Garden of Eden, that what was needed to liven things up was a snake. A nice, big, boa constrictor.
Silence like a poultice comes to heal the blows of sound. Hush! Listen! Can you hear the grass growing in Ambridge? The dew falling and the hushed town breathing?
Ambridge is a place where nobody needs to shout (unless they back into a bull) because this is radio and the minimal inflections of a good actor’s voice tell you all you need to know about grief or desire. The constant listener catches these tiny hints like catching a fluffy day-old chick. Peggy, the matriarch, has had 90 years to practise this subtle shading of the voice and now has a whole colour chart of unspoken emotion. Most people live to be 90 in Ambridge except Scruff and he had a good innings. Unlike the Ambridge cricket team.
The children of Ambridge are surprisingly well spoken and all have a darkling side. There is young George, whose paternity was hotly disputed by the Grundy brothers. Ruairi, the local landowner’s love child. Adam, the result of Jennifer’s affair with a passing cowman (the passing cowman is a constant motif in Ambridge). Phoebe, the child of a summer of love. Everyone seems quite relaxed about this. The only downside to this cheerful confusion is that you might inadvertently marry your uncle. On this colourful patchwork quilt of chaotic children, Helen’s children, Henry and Jack, will hardly be noticed. Though bearing in mind the Garden of Eden and Cain and Abel and all that, I will be following their lives nervously.
The real casualty of the trial was an innocent bystander. Ian was left standing there with all his clothes blown off, naked to the gossips. He is married to Adam, whose infidelity was used in court to discredit Ian as a character witness. The debris of the detonation seemed to fall about him like charred flakes in a bombed building. Questioned, he said quietly he didn’t want to talk about it. Now that puts all the shouting in the shade.
