Chicken Obsession!

[Groovychook 0]

Any other Archers listeners out there wondering when this odious character will get his comeuppance? I'm not sure I can take much more

 

It's been a well written storyline and his manipulative and controlling behaviour has been allowed to develop gradually, but when will Helen and Pat see the light?!

It's been an uncomfortable listen at times but hats off to the writers for highlighting a different aspect of domestic abuse other than the usual, more obvious plot lines.

[chuckmum6 1]

Yes he is a horrid character, but what about his mother, that is a strange relationship! We have been warning Helen about him for months and now he is plotting to have poor little Henry banished to boarding school!

Great storyline to listen to, we listen on Sunday mornings in our pj's after a nice breakfast.

[Olly 9]

It's driving me mad, in fact I have decided I'm not going to listen any more till this storyline is over. I'm assuming it'll go on till the baby is born.

 

I agree that it's good to highlight a different sort of domestic abuse but I'm struggling with the characterisation. Helen is a very independent woman who's run her own business, made the decision to have her first child entirely on her own, and she comes from a very close family - it's hard to accept that she's allowed Rob to brainwash her in this way, and even harder to imagine the feminist Pat, who hated Rob to begin with, hasn't seen through all this.

 

Slightly off track, how did he fiddle it so that he was shown not to be the father of Jess's baby? I'm sure he IS the Daddy.

[Groovychook 0]

I keep thinking that it's going to come to a head and then it goes and picks up momentum again

I was sure that the paternity test (I think he's the Daddy too) was going to reveal his shenanigans but no... I have no idea how he managed to wangle the test or how he got away with banishing the workman from the super dairy so that his role in the flood wouldn't be revealed. I'm hoping that there will be a conclusion to both of those threads. Then there's Shula keeping shtum about witnessing the attack on the hunt sab...

 

It is hard to see how Helen could be duped but I suppose she has always been quite emotionally fragile regarding her relationships. Maybe it is possible to become completely consumed by such a manipulative character as Rob.

It infuriates me that Pat has been taken in by him... thank goodness for Kirsty smelling a rat!

 

His mother is an interesting character- it's obvious where his personality traits come from. I wonder how, all of a sudden though, he's keen to have her around. It wasn't long since he didn't want anything to do with his family.

 

And yes, poor little Henry...

[Daphne 161]

I've given up listening after about 30 years; I can't stand the current writer(s) as I feel they get the characterisation so very very wrong, meaning its just not believable and frankly I couldn't care less any more You can probably guess this is not the first time I've said this, and a good friend of mine who also listens has to keep telling me 'its not real you know'!

 

I couldn't agree with previous comments more, its just not like Pat; Helen has been too much of a doormat for months on end now; who on earth would suddenly accept a previously invisible MIL parachuted in from nowhere, particularly as her son hasn't been keen on her till now either; the Jess storyline made no sense if Rob wasn't the father; would astute businesswoman Debbie have subbed her unbusinesslike sister Kate without more due diligence; why does "Ooops, word censored!"ody say anything about Kate's children she has left behind; would anybody really expect their family of 5 to be uprooted from the one place they've called home including removing children from school, selling a multi-million pound business and evicting an elderly lady, to move hundreds of miles away to be near a different elderly relative, rather than moving the said relative nearer them.....I could go on. But had better stop. And get out more

 

And I bet you that Lilian ends up with Justin.....

[Olly 9]

 

I'm so with you, Daphne!

[Groovychook 0]

The storyline about Ruth & David leaving Brookfield was so drawn out and tedious. We all knew that it was never going to happen so why they though they were keeping us in suspenders is beyond me. I shouted at the radio a lot during that spell

IAnd I bet you that Lilian ends up with Justin.....

Yes, that's another clunkingly obvious plot line... I do miss Tiger though

[kinsk 0]

I haven't listened regularly in the last 6 months. I've always thought Helen was a bit of a sad sap and so a prefect target for someone like Rob. I too don't understand the point of the Jess and her baby storyline.

 

I've missed Rob's involvement in the flood

 

I think sometimes writers start off a storyline with no idea where it's going to go and how it's going to end.

[WitchHazel 2]

I think the Rob and Helen storyline is mostly very real, and it's very credible that Helen has become such a shadow of her forner self. It happneed quite gradually, starting with her kearning to be careful about what she said or did for fear of upsetting Rob, and it has now culminated in her apologising for making him hit her.

 

As an aside, I believe that Rob got someone else to do the paternity test (or he snuck in someone elses sperm), and that Richard Locke was the doctor who administered the test (remember that Richard seemed to remember meeting Rob from somewhere). I also suspect that Rob has done away with Stefan, the chap who witnessed him blocking up the culvert.

 

I find the whole storyline very difficult to listen to, but gripping and - on the whole - well written. The actor who plays Rob is doing an outstanding job.

 

On the other hand, there is lots that vex me, some of which do make me stop listening from time to time:

Pat's transformation is completely out of character.

The whole move to David/Ruth Prudhoe storyline was a joke, very very badly done I thought. The whole Heather moving down (after refusing to do it in the first place and causing the whole stupid storyline )/death of Heather thing was rubbish, crass, and unnecessary. I stopped listening for a short while over this, it got on my nerves so much, and I got sick of Ruth's constant whinging.

 

I also hate that so many characters have become silents or have been written out. What a missed opportunity to cover Bethany's disability. Why bring in so many new young characters when some of the existing young characters don't get an storyline. Alice and Christopher. Jamie. Lots of them.

 

I hate that at least 4 of the characters (Charlie, New Tom, Rex and Toby) have voices that are hard to distinguish - surely a major requirement for a radio production. The Fairbrother storylines are pathetic, despite having agricultural advisors they have no concept of what it would really be like trying to manage 200 geese, especially when the characters have no animal hunsbandry experience. And now those bloody "pastured eggs"!

 

I could go on and on. (and frequently do).

 

I'm relieved that Sean O'Connor is going, and I hope the new editor improves things.

Edited March 16, 2016 by Guest

[Daphne 161]

I didn't know that - things might start to look up

 

And don't get me started on the egg thing, it all rings so untrue. I'm sure we could all write a more convincing plot line. Certainly a more entertaining one

[Groovychook 0]

Richard Locke was the doctor who administered the test (remember that Richard seemed to remember meeting Rob from somewhere)

Oh yes... I'd forgotten about that

 

It bugs me that so many of the characters sound the same too- Charlie and new Tom could easily be played by the same actor.

 

I wonder if the reason that Mike & family aren't in it any more is due to a falling out with the editor/ writers. The actor that plays Mike is the real life father of the actor that plays Will Grundy and he hasn't been in it for ages They seemed to disappear from the storyline rather quickly and around the same time.

 

The Fairbrothers are so irritating and the obsession with Pip's love life is doing my head in. I couldn't care less... especially as the 'new Pip' is nothing like the old one.

 

I have to say that I am gripped by the Rob/Helen storyline too but hope that it starts to come to a conclusion soon. I bet the actor that plays Rob is glad that it's radio and not TV. I think he'd get a hard time otherwise!

[WitchHazel 2]

I bet the actor that plays Rob is glad that it's radio and not TV. I think he'd get a hard time otherwise!

 

The poor chap has been getting a lot of hate mail and bad comments on social media. I believe he removed himself from social media platforms because of it.

 

I think it's crazy... I mean, he's a radio actor, it's not like people can see him and recognize him....they actually have to go and fund iut the name of the actor that plays Rob, then find him on facebook/twitter, befire they keave their comments.

[Groovychook 0]

Oh my word, I didn't realise that people were already on his case!

Poor chap... that'll teach him to be such a good actor

[chickencam 2]

I got fed up with the Archers when Elizabeth had the affair with Roy. I have listened on and off for most of my life, but it has become so far fetched and is no different than Eastenders on the radio.

[Groovychook 0]

Did anyone else listen to tonight's episode?

Crikey, wasn't expecting that!

[WitchHazel 2]

I wasn't expecting that,

I thought she was going to cover her ears and say la la la (like Jess did(, and then be murdered by Rob.

 

I really wasn't expecting this to come to such a head in such a way so soon.

[Groovychook 0]

Maybe things aren't as 'final' as Helen thinks... (she said, trying not to give anything away!)

Looking forward to tomorrow nights episode!

[Alis girls 78]

Wow good old Helen. Probably isn't dead and will be "behind you" eek scarey stuff.

[kinsk 0]

Just caught up going to have to listen to last weeks omnibus now!

[Groovychook 0]

Well... thought that might have been the outcome.

 

I wonder whether he'll pull through and continue to control Helen by offering to withdraw charges if she toes the line and does as he says

[Olly 9]

I suspect that'll be part of the story. I wasn't expecting that outcome! There were so many spoilers on R4 yesterday that I knew what had happened so I decided to listen to the Omnibus and to Sunday and Monday episodes to catch up. I think I may be able to bear it again now that presumably Rob and Helen won't be in the same room together.

 

It's a terrible life being a woman in Ambridge. You either have to be a deceived wife (Kathy Perks, Jennifer, Lilian), a victim of men (Kathy, Helen, Elizabeth), widowed young (Shula, Elizabeth) or a strumpet (Jennifer, Shula, Elizabeth, Lilian, most of the cast at some time or another).

 

At least the home birth is out now - I was dreading listening to that!

[soapdragon 583]

Goodness; if only life in the country really was that exciting/frenetic etc The most exciting thing that has happened in our village recently is when a family of ducks had to be rescued from the main road through the village - mind you, that wouldn't get many listeners if it was on the radio!

[Groovychook 0]

Goodness; if only life in the country really was that exciting/frenetic etc The most exciting thing that has happened in our village recently is when a family of ducks had to be rescued from the main road through the village - mind you, that wouldn't get many listeners if it was on the radio!

Oh I don't know...

[kinsk 0]

 

At least the home birth is out now - I was dreading listening to that!

 

[Olly 9]

Anyone listening to The Trial?

 

I wasn't going to listen day-by-day but I can't resist it. Gripping stuff.