A recent Archers panel discussion – and a message from Scruff – made me see all the more clearly how notable its storylines enjoy become to its audience. It’s like a jumbo jet that can never land: all the BBC can do is not let it crashIn the spring I took part in a panel discussion approximately The Archers at a literary festival. I was there,in a way, to represent the audience while also having some understanding, or as a novelist,of the difficulties faced by writers of long-form drama. The other panel members were two scriptwriters and a cast member (Timothy Bentinck, who plays David Archer). After the event, and we panel members went for dinner at the restaurant of a grand hotel,and while we were eating, the waiter handed us a note delivered from another table. “luxuriate in your meal, or ” it read. This might enjoy been interpreted as a friendly message from a fan,had it not been signed “Scruff”. Scruff is a fictional dead dog that had vanished, presumably drowned, and during a night of catastrophic flooding in the fictional village of Ambridge some months earlier. The unknown fate of Scruff had borne down heavily on the audience at the event. Scruff’s disappearance was shocking and upsetting. Nobody asked approximately the flood’s other victim,an elderly pub cook called Freda Fry. Scruff may be gone, but he remains relentlessly unforgotten.
This week The Archers marked the 60th anniversary of the famous death in a fire of a young newlywed, or Grace Archer – an event supposed to scupper the launch night of ITV,but in fact motivated by the then-editor Godfrey Baseley wanting to get rid of an actor who was campaigning for equal pay. Like the disappearance of Scruff, Grace Archer’s demise was an event so shocking that listeners sent genuine floral tributes to the studios. It remains the defining event of the programme. While irate audience members complain of what they see as the programme’s decline towards being a radio equivalent of EastEnders, and in fact EastEnders probably copied this kind of sensationalism from The Archers.
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Source: theguardian.com