The Archers
The Archers is a soap opera radio drama, that releases every day at 2pm and at 7pm except for Sunday’s. On Sundays the Archers release an omnibus which is the summary of all the episodes that week into a 1-hour long episode. The episodes that are released everyday are no longer than 13 minutes. The audience of this radio show are most popularly white elderly women who are over the age of 50, and who live in England. The most popular people watch the Archer is on the BBC website or on BBC sounds. You can also watch this radio show through Spotify and TuneIn on your mobile device.
The show starts off with the presenter
introducing the show then the theme song plays and then cuts straight into the
scenes where the dramas play out. The scenes have some drama for example the
electricians, but the scenes also do cut the other scenes and to different
storylines.
With the BBC remit the purpose of this
radio show is for entertainment and for education. As the main purpose being
entertainment for the audience listening to it. But the education side would be
with what factual things the characters say for example about cleaning and
farming etc.
Episode: 29/01/2024
The content of the show is that it starts
off with dialogue where the host Roifield Brown introduces the show and says
where the audience is watching it on. Then a theme tune starts playing a jolly
theme tune for about 20 seconds then straight away cuts into a scene. The scene
was about two people cleaning and talking about electricians who aren’t doing
their job quick enough because if they don’t someone’s show won’t go on.
Another person enters the scene asking about the electricians, and asking to
pass on a message to the person who’s the show was, to tell them that they
can’t be a model anymore. And the two ladies won’t tell the show owner the
guy’s message because they don’t want to get on her bad side so they tell him
that he has to tell her by himself and then he shouts “Oh BLIMEY” as he is
frustrated and knows that the woman will kill him. The scene then changes to a man and a woman in the pub
talking about how, apart, from the electrics they will be able to start the pub
back up, then changes to another scene of the same man and woman coming outside
to see the two women from the start of the episode washing the woman’s car. One
of the women is trying to splash the other with water saying that she hasn’t
helped her and we hear her do so because of the sound of laughter and splashing
noises assuming that the water is being thrown around. The two then get told
that they will be able to open up the pub again and we can physically hear a
sound of joy, making the audience listening at home feel happy for the pub
workers as they eagerly say that they will go home and put on their work
clothes while also spreading the word that the pub is opening again. After this
display of joy, we then have a time jump, where we are now in the pub. We hear
them talking about how they’re going to take the empty glasses out back and
they then start discussing how they should announce the winner of the drinking
competition, one of the men asks everyone to be quiet where he then promptly
announces the winner. This ends the episode and it is then followed out by the
end music which slowly fades away. Throughout the episode there are no breaks
and no more narration other than the announcement at the very start, this gives
the episode a more of a flow, where people can listen to 13 minutes about
everything that is happening without any breaks and distractions, just a whole
storyline for 13 minutes.
There are some meanings created by the
programme but not many. There are some dramatisations, with all the sound
effects of something clattering down or something doing something. It also is
the background noise of what happens, so if it is windy if their outside or if
its raining, or if there is shouting etc. The programme uses sound to give the
effect that the audience listening is inside of the show and is with the
characters in the scene.
The mode of address from the presenter
the Host was the mild tone to introduce the radio show and announce what
station the audience was listening on. The actors in different situations have
different modes of address it just depends on what happens at that moment in
time. So if someone was having a conversation with someone about something it
was just be a normal conversation with normal address, no shouting etc, but if
on the otherhand something has happened or someone did something bad there
could be some shouting or some arguing, but in all actual fact there is usually
the same form of address where everyone address everyone respectfully.
The Archers characters
A selection
of major characters from The Archers.
·
Archers - Brookfield Farm
branch
Played by Patricia Greene
Played by Paul Copley
Played by Felicity Finch
Played by Timothy Bentinck
Played by Daisy Badger
Played by Angus Imrie
Played by Ben Norris.
Played by Simon Williams
Played by Sunny Ormonde
Played by John Telfer
Played by Jennifer Daley
Played by Souad Faress
·
Archers - Bridge Farm branch
Played by David Troughton
Played by Patricia Gallimore
Played by Louiza Patikas
Played by William Troughton
Played by Ryan Early
Played by Mali Harries
Played by Tom Gibbons
Played by June Spencer
