Wednesday 16 March 2011

Archers XXX

Oh no. Following in the footsteps of execrable teen-soap Hollyoaks, The Archers ('an everyday story of farming folk' on Radio 4, established 1948) is getting a spin-off in a desperate attempt to support the rebranding of digital repeats station BBC7 as BBC4 Extra (or 4Xtra as they'll no doubt call it).

I agin it. It smacks of PR and of overextension.  Why not be good at one thing and leave it at that? I don't want to hear scriptwriters failing to be 'edgy' and 'cool'. I don't want to read Ed Grundy's Twitter feeds or see pictures of David Archer artificially inseminating the Holsteins. Uncut recordings of Usha and Alan's marital relations in the Vicarage - ugh. The Archers struggles enough without adding more - the recent visit of Camilla Parker-Bowles was painful propaganda of the worst sort: adding 'yoof' and 'relevance' is going to be an utter disaster.

The new show will feature more stories from in and around Ambridge, including new characters and storylines that are not featured in the main Radio 4 show.

A kind of ghetto? Will the poor, rebellious and ethnic ones be kept on the sink estate of Ambridge Extra while the grown-ups get on with fiddling their subsidy cheques?


"In the early episodes, we learn how Alice is getting on at university, and we meet Rhys, the barman at the Bull, who up to now has been a silent character," she said.
"There's also a chance to see what Jamie is getting up to behind his mother's back."


Noooooooooooooooooo!

All this sounds very non-canonical: a nightmare for proper fans and the Ambridge Socialists.

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