Archers stabbing ‘delayed due to Easter’
THE most dramatic scene in recent Archers history had been planned for broadcast on Easter Sunday last year before Radio 4’s controller intervened to avoid offending the church-going public, it has been revealed.
Sean O’Connor, the editor who oversaw the slow-burning abusive relationship between Rob Titchener and Helen Archer, said he and his writers had initially pen- cilled in the moment of the stabbing for Easter Sunday.
In the event, it ran a week later causing national uproar on a Sunday night as fans were left believing Rob was dead.
Speaking at the Radio Times Festival at the BFI in London, Mr O’Connor said: “The writers and I discussed what would happen over the next few years.
“We did think about doing the actual stabbing on Easter Sunday and then Gwyneth Williams said, ‘I don’t think we want to offend the church-going public, so let’s not do it then.’”
The date had been set at least nine months in advance, he said, because writers needed Helen to be heavily pregnant for the stabbing episode to work.
The storyline was credited with improving understanding of abused women and raising money for charities set up to help them.
It was also criticised by some for being distressing to hear, making the daily radio drama heavy listening.
Asked whether Helen would go on to press rape charges against her fictional husband, Mr O’Connor said the writers had decided against it in the short term because “the audience had been punished enough”.
He also disclosed that his predecessor, Vanessa Whitburn, brought a storyline about breast cancer to a swift conclusion after realising the audience could not take much more of it.
Mr O’Connor, who has now left the show to become editor of EastEnders, also made the audience of Archers fans gasp by finally revealing why character Kirsty could not marry Tom.
He said Kirsty’s love-life had to be ruined so that she left Ambridge for long enough for the abuse of best friend Helen to take hold without her noticing.