Bunting theft: about as dramatic as Archers fans want…

Ambridge is less dangerous than real life – but that is what listeners prefer

FOR more than six decades, the trials and tribulations of the everyday farming folk of Ambridge have kept Archers listeners gripped.

From the tragic death of Grace Archer in a fire in 1955 to Helen Titchener’s trial for attempted murder last year, there have been plenty of dramatic developments down the years.

But new research has suggested that life on Britain’s longest running drama is actually less action-packed and exciting than that of its millions of listeners. While characters on other soaps, such as Hollyoaks and Eastenders, are often involved in crime, corruption, disaster and destruction, the residents of the fictional Borsetshire village have a much more tranquil time.

When The Archers was first broadcast in 1950, its location of Ambridge was thought to have been based on the Worcestershire village of Inkberrow, which has a population of 1,500. Analysis of the crime statistics for Inkberrow compared to those of Ambridge suggest that scriptwriters on the soap are actually playing down the amount of drama that is realistic. According to research carried out by the security firm ADT, the number of incidents per 100 people in the soap in the last 10 years is 0.9, compared to 1.8 in Inkberrow. This compares to Walford, the fictional setting for Eastenders, where characters suffer almost three times the number of crime-related incidents as real Eastenders.

It means that Walford is a 10 times more dangerous place to live than Ambridge. Apart from Helen’s attempted murder of her abusive husband Rob – for which she was acquitted at trial – crime has been fairly thin on the ground in Ambridge.

There was the mysterious theft of bunting from the village green and a spate of speeding offences, but other than that, the local police officer, PC Harrison Burns, has hardly been run off his feet.

But some experts suggest that many fans are turned off when things become too exciting. When the Rob and Helen domestic violence storyline was at its peak last year, the audience actually fell by three per cent.

Nicola Headlam, an Oxford research fellow, who co-founded an annual academic conference about The Archers, said the mundane pace of life in Ambridge is what attracts many listeners. She said: “Listeners are not necessarily looking for excitement. The Rob and Helen storyline was utterly gripping. But it actually split many listeners. Perhaps The Archers does not accurately reflect modern life, but that is what attracts many fans.”