Systeme D

31 July 2008

The ten most terrible characters in the Archers

1. Will

My liberal-left consience cautions me against using such an awful, snobby word as "chav", but Will vaults past the remains of my conscience - and the nagging doubts that this is radio and you can't actually see what he looks like - to win first prize as a jug-eared, permanently aggrieved, buck-toothed, gormless little chav. His hands-off-my-precious-little-spoilt-brat attitude is so overblown it almost verges on comedy. As I finish this blog post while listening to this evening's episode of the Archers, I've actually promoted Will two places on the basis of his full-tilt rant about Ed: "Couldn't leave it, could he? Couldn't bear to see me happy. He won't stop until I've got nothing left to live for." Er, hate to break it to you, Will, but not everyone thinks you're as important as you yourself do.

2. Pat

Sanctimonious, loud-mouthed old boot and unquestionably winner of the "person you would least like as your neighbour" award. Has managed the achievement of making me cheer on pantomime villain Matt Crawford in his efforts to sell off their cottage. With any luck Pat will do something highly illegal in her efforts to resist and get an ASBO for the privilege (you can have that idea for free, scriptwriters). Deportation to Australia would be better still.

3. Amy

According to the Archers website: "Her feistiness, though charming, can take her beyond the boundaries of good behaviour"... "Amy can get into scrapes when driven by her highly developed sense of justice"... "nutty about horses". Which is all very polite but "self-righteous, utter gobshite who only appears every six months and still manages to be intensely annoying" is more how I'd phrase it.

4. Usha

Was insufferably prissy and well-what-do-you-expect when Ruth was having the whole Sam/David trauma. Then as soon as she runs into trouble herself (over the wedding and the odd misplaced comment by Shula, hardly the sharpest knife in the drawer herself), becomes helpless and needy and oh-everyone-else-has-to-look-after-me. Gah.

5. Tony

It's not clear whether Pat was turned awful by marriage to uber-dullard Tony, or whether Tony was turned dismal by marriage to Pat, or, oh, I can't be bothered with this. Even just writing about Tony takes it out of you. Without doubt Tony reads the Daily Mail - actually, no, I suspect Tony never had the get-up-and-go to change from the Express.

6. Susan

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

7. Tom

Being bereft of telly I don't actually watch The Apprentice, so do tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing Tom would fit right in: self-assured verging on arrogant, had a fairly average business idea which he's pushing forward in oh-you-seem-to-have-substituted-a-bulldozer-for-your-personality fashion, and loves the sound of his own voice. Tom has a knack of sounding reasonable, pleasant even, for three-episode stretches until then doing something really obnoxious (e.g. kicking off about Mike's house) that causes you to punch your radio quite hard. (Clearly I'm exaggerating for dramatic effect here. The only time I've ever hit a radio was about 18 years ago when Virginia Bottomley was on the Today programme.)

8. Brian

It's too easy to nominate Brian as a terrible character and I really tried to resist. I quite like Brian really. Generally he adds to the gaiety of nations, roughly in the same way that, say, Mussolini did. But, really. Putting up a memorial stone to Siobhan in Ambridge is the sort of thing that makes you blink and ask "Did he really just suggest that?". I'm now half expecting him to ask Jennifer to rename herself Siobhan by deed poll (again, scriptwriters, that's my present to you).

9. Emma

Oh, but Emma is just a drip. It's not so much that she's annoying per se, it's just utterly bemusing how Ed could dump Fallon, who rocks and could clearly drink the entire cast under the table (possibly with the exception of Lilian), for Emma, who would like to be a space cadet if only she had the force of personality. Note to Archers nerds: yes I know technically Fallon dumped Ed. You know what I mean.

10. Bert Fry

This is unfair. I'm sorry, Bert, I don't mean it. It's just that if they're going to devote airtime to a bumbling old duffer with a comedy rural accent, I'd far rather that it was conniving, drunk, incompetent, hilarious Joe Grundy than innocuous-and-really-a-bit-boring old Bert.

Appendix

People (sorry, I meant "characters". Of course I did) who definitely don't merit the list: Lynda Snell (who is superbly well observed), Matt Crawford (who is a hoot), Ruth (who is lovely despite what the Archers messageboard might think), Shula (who's just too dumb to be included). And Jazzer. Jazzer deserves an entire spin-off series. Ideally at 6.30 every Thursday and with Mark Watson in the starring role.

Comments

Add a comment

Your name:

E-mail address: 

Comment:

your comment. (E-mail addresses will not be visible, but a server-based mail link will be provided. To guard against spam, no comments which include 'http' or 'www' will be published.)