DumTeeDum - A show about BBC Radio's 'The Archers'

Dum Tee Dum Episode 62 – The Plarchers

The super funny The Plarchers grace the show, they are as secretive as Mi5

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The post Dum Tee Dum Episode 62 – The Plarchers appeared first on DumTeeDum.

Duration:: 1h 22m
Broadcast on:: 30 Jun 2015
Audio Format:: other

This podcast is a Royfield Brown production. Find others on iTunes. Hello, I'm Sarah Smith, proud sponsor of Dum T Dum. If you want to polish up your Albion, give your optics a wipe or even mop up after your ferrets, Sarah Smith cloths are eco-friendly, usable and washable. And, you know, a bit posh. Sarah Smith, available from Sainsbury's for the posha-washer, proud sponsors of Dum T Dum. Hello, Royfield and Lucy. It's Jan from Cannes calling in with my version of Dum T Dum. Alright, so, without further ado, Lucy V Freeman is anything you'd like to say to our esteemed guest. No, apart from we did have lots of people who just wanted to say, "I haven't got a question, but I think it's brilliant, can you just tell her that?" So, there we are. We're telling you any kind of them. It really is. It's lovely for when people say that. I know, yeah. For us as well, you just feel, because it's something that you like doing anyway and then it just feels like gravy when people say, "Exactly." Oh, yes, but I, you know, it makes me happy. Yes, very good. Oh, thank you for that. Well, don't thank us. Well, we haven't said that. It's the listeners. Because this is Dum T Dum, the show about the reality ducky drama that ascended on ambrage in the heart of the Midlands. I'm the smoking smudge dick that is Royfield Brown. And with me, I have Underwood's dressing gown that is. Lucy Freeman, and joining us today, we have A.J. from the plotchers. Hello, everyone. Yay! And the most important part of our house cleansing ceremony, folks, is you. Now, today's rendition of Barric Green is brought to you by Jan Mitchell, who this week sent Lucy and I not one. Not two, not even three, but four cinnamon buns all the way from Canada Land. Lucy, my cinnabuns were absolutely scrumlishous. How are you? Well, I don't know. Would you like to tell me how mine were? You're a fantastical, don't you? Well, it was just like, you're just a side of London. You just get posting pictures on Twitter of this is me eating Lucy's buns. This is me eating... Oh, dear, that's not good. This is me eating, you know, looking for both of them. With your mouth round your buns. But I tell you what, though, Jan Mitchell, I love you dearly, Jan, and I swear to high heaven, the next time I'm anywhere near Vancouver, you know, border guards permitting if I'm the wrong side of the US Canadian border, I will come knocking, because you know what she did? So she wrote this lovely letter and she said, "So right for what I've done is I've posted you four cinnabuns, and I froze them, I've put them in a cooler bag, and I estimate that by the time you get them, they'll sufficiently thaw that, they'll be incredibly fresh. Lucy, your buns were amazingly fresh and succulent. A whole load of cinnabuns. And you're the only person in the world who's ever said that, I'd just say. But listen, folks, if you two want to butter me up, feel free to send me cakes, buns, anything. Just direct message me, I'll give you my address, send them in the post, I'll be smashing and super. Right, now, Lucy. Yes. Can you remind our wondrous listeners, our kind listeners, our listeners that like to bake haven't been the accolade of Dummy Dumber of the Week. Yes, if you want to sing it a dumpty dum build us a rap trap, or give Kristina lethal injection, please get in touch by a speak pipe on the site, or ring 0203013105. Thanks to Harriet at Shambridge for her amazing voices, who is also working with Royce on his 10 American presidents at the moment, and lovely Sarah Smith for sponsoring Dumpty Dum. And thanks also to Derek for the loan of the back bedroom. Derek is working with Susan to create some cocktails for Mike's leaving party. So far, he suggested a peachy screw and an eager beaver, but she said he'll have to wait till after she's made the chili. Oh, you're filthy, you are, you're not. But first this week, we have calls from a whole load of people from all four corners of the globe. First one is Jacqueline Bertot, who I'm going to talk about later because she's most awesome, and we are going to add a lovely chat with her. Now, Jacqueline for sees a pregnancy. Jojo Sexy Hills, who thinks that we'll have a new Nigel Pardis, her. Oh, God, I hope not. With a spoon, who thinks we should be kinder to our decardboard? Bly spirit chimes in, who thinks that Kate is beyond belief. Yunkle Bear, who defines Hell, and Andrew Horn bringing up the rear, who thinks that the end is in sight for Heather Peck. But first, before all of that good stuff, we have some stuff, which, yeah, some weeks it's good, some weeks, not so good. You know, it's Lucy V from a unique sideways glance at the last seven days in Ambridge. [MUSIC] Heather Peck is trundling on there, moving her down to the stroke ward. Don't tell Toby there is even such a thing as he'll be there like a shot. Open farm Sunday was rubbish. At Brookers, three people turned up. One of them was Rex the sheepdog, who ran round in circles for a bit and then sat down and licked himself. However, at Burrow Farm, there were fireworks, Kiri Takano was singing Arve Maria, Bunny Girls, a naked barbecue, and no dead cow was which made a pleasant change from last year. [MUSIC] So it looks like it's by by Vicki and little Bethany. Mike's been relegated to the shed, which he is supposed to be clearing out, but I think he's going to do a Julian Assange bolt the doors and refuse to come out. Roy is going to have to feed in beans through the knottles in the wood. In fact, maybe Auntie Cardboard could join him and they could make a sort of laurels without the raffier work. He had an equidorian consulate in Felfishon. I wouldn't imagine so no. Is that where Julian Assange kind of locked himself? Yeah, he's still there. Yeah. All right then, so sorry. Oh, so it was just like a kind of, oh, okay, you're sorry. So you did this, clever. [LAUGH] Clever than you, clearly. Yes, he had an emotional, Mike had an emotional farewell with Neil and Eddie from the cider club where they all discussed the good old days, like when his wife died, he lost an eye and went bankrupt. So it was horrified at Jenny Darling's suggestion that they celebrate Mike's leaving with some designer beer and a few sandwiches. Designer beer, he's not exactly the designer beer type, is he? He's a horny, hunted son of soil, give him a corona, and the first thing he'd do is get the limes stuck up his nose. There was a strange interlude with a homemade rat trap, which I couldn't quite fathom, but unless the rat trap pops up in a later episode as integral to the culvert plot, I'm just assuming that was one of those arches. Those arches, anecdotal, coldy sacks, we sometimes get led down. At times, listening to the arches is like talking to someone at a party whose funny stories don't actually have a point, and then you end up saying, say, what did happen? And they say, oh, I don't know, and you just have to adjust your expression of eager anticipation. At first, I thought, as I'm still continuing to do, the rat trap will somehow attract scruff, and he will be found in it, or under it, or on it, and then I realized scruff is gone, and I have to let it go. Unbearable Kate Roped poor Phoebe into a terraced cleanse on Tuesday to clear away testosterone Toby's purple sprinklings. Then the stage was set for Unbearable Kate's house cleanse. Preparations for a normal person's house cleanse involve sif and a pan scrub, but Kate's featured burning sage twigs to cleanse negative spirits, vodka, sprinkled liberally, liberally, all over areas of contention, and cran-reduce and sister leave for the morning after if Toby's going to be there. It also featured Brian in a dressing gown, a startling sight no doubt, as he was called when Kate's mud stick set the alarms off. The award for the most bowel-clenching the embarrassing phrase of the year already goes to Unbearable Kate shouting, let's do some smudging! I actually went, ah, out loud when she said it, and I heard it twice, and did that both times. My love for Brian, however, only increased this week, firstly when he sniggered and said "no danger of that" when Kate told him to stay away from her vegan ingredients, and secondly when we discovered that Brian sits in his bath with red wine, listening to the grand march from Aida, I bet he has little boats that bob around in there with him. But Toby was not there, following a heavy-handed scene in which he got his bottom smacked by Vivat Rex, who said, "If you carry on like this, it will be bright and all over again." But as usual, we got no more detail than that. What did he do in Brighton? Burn the pier down in a hilarious public school dickhead prank? Quite why Vivat Rex is going into business with a man he clearly cannot stand and is a source of constant embarrassment. Even if he is his brother, I have no idea. Adonoid Lallis is back and is now on the Fate Committee. What can go wrong with her faultless track record of event organisation? The first action of the Fate Committee on Adonoid's Doying the Fate Committee was to immediately vote to cancel the fate. Linda thinks it is defeatist and cannot see the problem in trying to hold the fate on a village green that's going to look like the battle of the Somme crisscrossed with sewage pipes, but she's always looked on the bright side. Maybe they could play some traditional country games like Name That Smell, who's up the culvert and pin the blame on Ed Grumdie. Auntie Cardboard, Hootigill and Peggy Woolley went out for a jolly day out to cheer up Auntie Cardboard. It didn't work overly well as Auntie Cardboard at the moment could make Timmy Mallage depressed, but anyway. She kept going on about wanting a fuchsia but not wanting it because there was no point as she didn't know where she'd be, so everyone kept saying, "So you're not sure about the fuchsia then, Christine?" So I was left shouting, "Yes, fuchsia, future, we get it. Shut up." At one stage, Jill said, "She can't go into the laurels, she's still so full of life." Which was astonishing, as Auntie Cardboard has never been full of life. Full of horse hair, tweed and cake, yes, but never full of life. Charlie rang Adam and invited him over for a quick one on the off chance. Once again, Adam broke the land speed record trying to get there and then discovered he'd misheard and Charlie actually meant pulled pork as a lunch dish. Charlie needs to make his booty calls a little clearer, I think. So there we have it. Bye-bye to the interesting, funny, character-driven tuckers with their distinctive voices and hello to the bland fair brethren and their dysfunctional sibling relationship and middle-class identity kit Rada accents because we really don't have nearly enough of them. The end. Can I just say, Big Love goes out to Terry Malloy, who played Mike, who we hope will be back and he gave us lots of love on the Twitters. He did. And if you want to follow him, folks, you can follow him at Tuckers Patch on the Twitters and he's very lovely and he responds to tweets posed his way and lovely guy and was it 40 years being played Mike? - 42. - 40 crumbs. 42 years of Mike Tocker. Lovely gentleman. Follow him on the Twitters, give him lots of love. You will be missed. - And very appreciative of his audience. - Absolutely, absolutely. And so will that partner Tocker family. All very sad. All very sad. But the link to Doctor Who was rather lovely and a little line about that card if you would add himself. But let's Lucy now go and speak to us. Shall we just explain why that is lovely? The Doctor Who link is because Terry Malloy played Davros on the archers. Is it King of the Daleks or Chief Daleks? It's not bad this week Lucy. Well done. But AJ are esteemed guests. What do you reckon to lose his money log? - I love it every week. She just knows it for me. - Are you just saying that because she's nice? - I said because she never ate my cinnamon flipping bun. That's why I'm loving her. Listen, AJ, if I had to put the cinnamon bun in front of you, would you have eaten it? Would you have cared whether it was actually mine or Lucy's? - Thought not. There you go. - I'm not. I probably would have known. I'm not. - Yeah. I don't know. I've maybe had too much of it as a child, but no. I'm not a messist. So naturally I wouldn't eat it. - Well done. - Conversation is taking a bit of a turn now. I wasn't expecting that answer. - Yeah. Well, not everyone is a git. - But first off, right, for people who aren't on the Twitter's, AJ, what could be Jesus's plotchers? - So the plotchers is key scenes from this week's Omnibus episode of The Archers. Don, we're using Clamerville, and then tweeted alongside when the Omnibus goes out on the radio. - Is that a good explanation? - It is. It is. - But what you're very modestly missing out is the fact that it is brilliant, and somehow you're managing to encapsulate, like the whole, like, for example, Rob Tichner is represented as Dracula with a swirling cloak with the wind billowing on. I mean, how? I have a million questions. The most of which, do Clamerville actually make all those characters, or are you modifying the ones that they already are? - Can I quickly jump in, though? Just for people who haven't seen it, what exactly is Clamerville? - So Clamerville is kind of like Lego, but not really. It's a German toy that is small, plastic figures, and then we, obviously, use a lot of the farm sets. So they produce all kinds of things, tractors, different animals, different farm buildings. But then you might have seen us using elements from other Clamerville sets. So they do pirates, so for the Ambridge, flood, the rowing boat was actually one of the pirate ships. And I'm very excited about the fact that they're digging up the village green, because that means I can go and invest in some of their work in a set as well. They're just plastic children's figures. - When you say us, is it more than just you? - No, it's actually just me. I was talking the plural. I'm not sure why. - Probably because you spend a lot of time talking to small plastic figures, so you've started to think of yourself as us now. - Me and the cast. But you are kind of selling yourself short here, in that it isn't just the fact that you've managed to create this kind of like great, or recreate the great universe of Borsicher through Clamerville. You also have a great comic eye and an eye for composition, and it can take a mean photograph. So how exactly have you arrived at being so fantastically awesome? - Well, this is really kind of because I think that probably I'm not that good at it, actually. I would love to get better at taking the photos, actually. I spend my whole time asking, I work with a loss of professional photographers, and I spend my whole time going, yeah, but how can I get them better lit? And they just look at me and just go, you're mad, and the ones are off. I think it's that if I have the time to think about it, it's always sometimes quite nice to do a picture that is a bit slightly off the wall, because one of the things when I started doing it, I very quickly realised that actually when you actually sit down and analyse an episode of the archers, there is quite a lot, and this sounds obvious now, of characters just talking to each other and not an awful lot of action. So sometimes you do have to just look for other ways of making the scene a bit comedic. - When someone new, when a new character arrives, do you ever think, "Oh my god, am I going to do them?" or do you just think, "Hara!" "Oh, that's yes, I can see exactly how that one's going to look." - Well, I think there was a question on Twitter that was how do we actually do them? Do we do them during the week as the episodes go out or do we wait until all of the episodes go out? - That was Sally Annerley, she said, "Are the scenes created and photographed throughout the week?" So they're all ready to tweet during the omnibus, is that how it works? - Kind of, what happens is if I'm being really good, then I do it during the week, but that probably happens about one week and five. They normally get done on a Saturday, and if I really have been incredibly lazy on Saturday, sometimes they get done very early on Sunday morning. But when I listen through the week, so if I hear a new character come up, then there is a chance either to go through the many, many spare models that I've got to see if there's one that fits, in the case of Hazel Willy, who is played by a dragon from one of the dragon sets. Then as soon as I knew Hazel was back in, I was like, "I've got to go and find a playing with Bill Dragon," and I did. So it kind of depends. But I have to say that in the case of Vampire Rob, even before I started doing this, when I was still kicking around the idea of how we could do it, and if it was possible, I had seen the playing with Bill Vampire set, and I thought that's got to be Rob, because there is something at the night about him. And he just, that figure seems to fit his character so well. - It is proper Hammer House of Horror. As opposed to Buffy in the Vampire Slave, there's the vampires there, who were all kind of bit kind of cuddly weren't made before they beat you on the neck. But he's got to use a lot to Christopher League God rest him if you died this week. - Yeah. - Now, following on from that, and you might have slightly answered this, but Alison Nozilla_63 on the Twitter says, "Were the playmo, Bill, figures bought for the purpose, or were they rent from the hands of poor weeping children?" - No, they're bought for the purpose. So, although some friends have since started to offer up their children's playing with Bill. - So the answer is, yes. - Without checking with the children, then. - Yeah, exactly. - Give it away. - Mommy has a reason to do take me away from you. No, it's genuinely, for my birthday this year, I did get the playing with Bill farm set, which every one at the time, because I hadn't started doing this, just looked at me as if I was quite strange, including the person who bought it for me. But, yeah, I've then just basically go through eBay, go through various other online stores looking for pieces. Some of the pieces are new, some pieces are second-hand. Yeah, so that's kind of how it comes. - So how did, initially, I mean, were you listening to the arches and then thought, "I can see how this would look in playmo-beel? "And think, 'Oh, that looks like Gil Archer.' "How did the..." - A shout out to my nephew here. We spent Christmas with my brother and his family, and Will, for Christmas, got the playmo-beel farm set, which is the basis for all of this. And, naturally, all the men in the family did about ten minutes of putting it together and then wandered off to go and find something else to do. And I was just putting various parts of this together and just thought to myself, "Do you know what? You could actually start to recreate bits of the arches using this." Now, I've listened to the arches for more years than I care to remember. In fact, more decades than I care to remember. And I suddenly thought, "This could actually work." But then it took me another couple of months before I actually decided to have a go at it. And, in fact, I bought loads of playmo-beel, and I still hadn't started even having a go at potentially how it could work. And the first week I did it, I didn't tell anyone I was doing it. I just used the arches hashtag, and it really kind of all took off from there, and people were so kind and so nice and said how much they enjoyed it. - So, were you on Twitter before? - Yeah. - Okay. Are you still on it now? Is something different? - Yes. - You are very, very, very cloak and dagger about your identity, aren't you? - Well, it's a bit difficult, really, because I do online kind of media for work as well, and I kind of like to keep the two of them separate. - So... - But you don't do anything to do with the arches online media, do you? - No, no, no. I have worked for Beeb in the past, but no, I have nothing to do with the arches. - Okay. - How intriguing. - Absolutely. - Valerie Bayless says, "Oh, where did you get the idea of Ranbreath since their 60s?" He answered that, but he also then followed up by saying "You would love to see how you would have made Mrs. Antropus, Nigel or Nelson." - Oh, that's interesting. Do you know, I don't know. The trouble is that it's very rare that I kind of come up and think, "Ooh, I'm looking for that kind of figure." It actually comes that, generally, I see the figure and think, "That person could do very well for so-and-so." So it'd be quite hard to kind of guess that, but what I would say is I am one of the people who felt that the script writers, who, I don't like to criticize the most part, but I felt they missed the trick, actually, in killing Nigel off. I think it would be far more interesting to have him paralyzed and sitting in a wheelchair in a wing at Lower Locksley, slowly drinking himself. - I think Nigel in a wheelchair would have been quite good, actually. I think that they kind of opted for the easiest one. Nigel, could you have been a bit like Professor Rex in the X-Men? He's in a wheelchair, isn't he? - Yes, he could have been like that. I just thought the other way and just, you know, taking the whole thing quite badly. I don't know. It's difficult. I think I would have loved to have done Nigel, though, because I do miss him. I really do. - It's rarely. I'd say that about fictional characters. - Do you remember Canbowick Green? - Yes. Yes, I do. - When I think of Mrs. Antribus, I always think of her as that old lady that used to get towed across Canbowick Green by those dogs, little yappy dogs that would kind of go roaring along and she'd go sort of hovering, not like she was hovering along behind them. I always think about that. - Yeah, no, I think that's a really good one. One of the things that I've noticed about Ambridge, and I don't notice, I don't know if anyone else has noticed this as well, but there are a distinct lack of pets. - Yeah, a lot of people have said that, actually. - Yeah. - And a few odd cats, but really, there seem to be a real kind of lack of pets. I think there's a guinea pig somewhere, isn't there? I think it didn't will buy George a guinea pig. - Sure. - Which I think has since disappeared. - Well, they'd probably shot it already, so yeah. - Oh, Jane Roth from the book of Face says she loves you. And she said, especially that one with the sheep in the tree, do you feel that using fuzzy felt might be more of a match? She thinks it's Fallon would agree. - Oh gosh, I love fuzzy felt. I haven't seen that in years. I like the cheap puppetry as well. I don't know, I don't think I could do it in fuzzy felt. There's something really nice and tactile about playmobile figures. And unlike Lego figures, it takes them to break them apart. So they feel quite solid. And because this lot here, they take a beating each week. They really do. - Now Kate Nichols says she loves the clutches, and she's even considering going on Twitter, just so she can see her. So I don't know you're getting some backhanders from Twitter there, but well done. Now she wants to know exactly how long it takes to create a character, because you always get them just right. And she loves the ferret, and what has been the most challenging scene so far? - Okay. How long does it take to create a character? Well, like I said, really, as soon as I see a playingmobile figure, I've got my idea of who they're going to be. How long does it create to do all the photos for a particular omnibus? It actually probably in total takes about four hours. It can be quite long, and sometimes it can be so difficult. You just can't work out how to get the angles. - Is it really tricky working with kind of like playmobile characters? They moody, they're stroppy, they're riders, you know? - It's a lot of ego, a lot of ego. - Yeah, they're deavers. Mainly, it's the fact that they don't really have a... They can move their heads. Followers of the plot just will know that there are two basic emotions, smiley, and then shock horror with their arms in the air. And that's basically it. - That's really much like the actual artist. - So I'd say that's very, really distinct. They don't really know. So the hardest scenes are always the sad scenes or the angry scenes, because of course the figures have always got me to predict the smiles on me. Which I quite like actually, it doesn't make me laugh. The blooding scenes, I did think, how are we going to do this? And it took her, the more that week went on, and the more I was thinking, "I wish I'd never started this." But the great thing is that the Baco foil, or sorry, I shouldn't use the brand. Other Timfoils are available. The great thing about Timfoil is that it's all in a photograph, you get the angle right, it does just look like water. So that was quite useful. But sometimes I do think that the script writers are just trying to test me. I'm sure they're not, but sometimes it just feels... I just think, listen, I think, right, that might be a bit of a challenge. - We're talking about a challenge, right? Now, the plarches itself isn't without controversy. Now, Doug Point has basically pulled you to task by saying you need to look at the stereotype and the gender roles that are shown. So, AJ, how do you respond to criticism that your portrayal of women of Ambridge has set back the course of gender equality in a hundred words? - I like that question. I would say, as any good PR person would, that really, I'm very much tied by what play would be able to create. So, I would say... - So it's their fault. - Yeah. I don't know. I think I've tried to be quite kind of true to the scripts. So, can I blame the answers as well? - Yes. - Of course. - Catmab says, she wants to know, well, he wants to know, did you find non-wedding Ed? - Oh, yes, I did. - Excellent. - There is a story behind that. In order to make the wedding groom Ed, I had to borrow Ed's hair and stick it onto the groom. So... I don't feel figures without any hair on. They're very difficult. They kind of merge into the box. Either that or we've been out on an adventure. We live quite near two pubs. So either he just disappeared down the pub for the best part of 24 hours. But he knows he's back in the box and he will be all ready for the next of Ed's scenes. - I'm quite upset, actually, because I like Ed. - No, we're big Ed fans, aren't we, Lucy? - Yes. - Now, kind of wrapping this up with listener questions. Sue Archer, who is at to Archer number six on the Twitter, says that she loves you and... - Nancy Dickey says, "I don't have any killer questions, but I wanted to say that I love "the planchers very clever and very funny, and thank you." - Oh, no, thank you. It's lovely when people say that. - Well, that's all you ever get. - It's good, excuse the French, it's fucking ace. I'm sorry, I've been holding back all the way through this. - No, no, it is, it really is. - And, you know, it just absolutely kind of like makes my week when I look at the kind of either hashtag the archers Twitter feed, you know, you get these and you get so many retweets and absolute straka genius. - I know, well, thank you. I want to say thank you to everyone because all the comments and all the favourites and the retweets, it does actually mean a lot. I just, I wish I could get that for the company I work for, for their Twitter account. It's much harder. But I'm a big fan of everyone who takes part on the hashtag on a Sunday morning. There's so many things that are just very, very funny, and people say the nicest things. So it's, I never really expected it to take off the way it has. - Well, they are well deserved. - Absolutely. And on that note, I think we should Lucy. - Yep. - What am I going to say now? - Go to the phone lines. - Spot on. - Hello, Ambridge 3962. Hi there, you two. It's Jacqueline Berto from Sanguine, Brittany. Just finished listening to last week's Omnibus. That was a bit of a disjointed week. And where in the world is the world's most hated man? Having won the single wicket competition, it seems to have been lost. Hmm. Let's hope it won't be found. Bye. But just before we go into the next course, Jacqueline Berto, you are most awesome. Did you know Lucy? Do you know? Did you know? Do you know what she does for a living? - No. - She's a politician. She's a local counselor in San Juan. - Really? - She, last year, she was elected to the town council. And now, I'm going to keep a little bit stumb about this. But she is prepared to do something quite big and awesome and organize something. And if you listen to the last podcast, you might be able to figure out what that is going to be. But she says she's willing to do it. But we don't want to burden her with work if there isn't going to be the demand for it. So that's all I'm going to say. If you listen to the podcast, you'll have more than just an illusion as to what I'm talking about. When there are more details, we'll furnish it with them. And you never know. - Well, I hope other people have, because I haven't got bloody clue what you're talking about. - Oh, question noise. Yes, you are. - I don't. - Hi there, Dunty-dum. It's Jojo Sexy Heels here. I have just finished listening to the podcast, which is as tremendous as always. My prediction is that Toby, Fair Brother, is the new Nigel Pargeter. I just want to know who's got the gorilla suit because he's going to need it. And my prediction is that in about 10 years' time, we will hear the wedding bells of Toby, Fair Brother, and Lily Pargeter. Over to you guys. Oh, and by the way, Roy Field with all the talk about rat traps can have a bit of the boom-town rats in the background. Okay, bye now. - Well, oh, Jojo Sexy Heels is Toby Fair Brother, the new Nigel Pargeter. No, he is not nice enough. Nigel was a prat, yes, but he was benign and kind. - And he was a gentleman. - And Toby is an arse. - He's not a gentleman. - No, I don't mean who's a bit of an arse in a nice way. He's a nasty arse. Yes, what are you laughing at? - No, he's just a nasty arse and he's wiping. Do you think we get some Sarah Smith class on his arse then, Lisa? - I would not dream of putting a nice Sarah Smith cloth anywhere near that arse. - I don't understand. Why the hell are they going into business together? I mean, you know, it's familial, isn't it? - So Rex is just like a rescuer and he needs to sort of help his brother out. - Yeah, and maybe, you know, they've got it from on high, from, you know, some other generation of the fair brethren that he's supposed to guide his brother and blah, blah, blah, and maybe that's the reason why they have the money to help put him straight, whatever, blah, blah, blah. But I'm not that interested in the pair of them, but not at the moment anyway. I'm not writing them off, but at the moment, it's good that it's been quite clever in that at first we didn't know who was who, but slowly, but actually quite quickly now, we have distinct personalities. I still don't know which is who when they're speaking, you know, but let's hope that we get interested in them soon. - Yes, that would be nice, wouldn't it? Let's hope they do something interesting, so with a spoon, with a spoon, it's gonna. - Greetings from Witherspoon and Angus Haggis to Lucy Royfield and all the Dum T Dimmers around the world. We're looking forward to this weekend's journey to the village of Kinderhook in the Hudson River Valley, which would have particular interest to Royfield, as it was the birthplace and home of the 8th American president and the first president born after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Martin Van Buren. Another anecdote is that Van Buren was associated with the possible origin and definite popularization of the term "OK", as he would follow his signature with those initials, standing for old Kinderhook. Isn't that interesting? Following up on the topic of love, evolutionary, biology, or social construct, it's complicated, like timey wimey stuff. Much research is being done on the topic, as was alluded to last week. Here's a little of what we do know. Hormones and neurotransmitters are very important. Initially testosterone and estrogen, followed by adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin. Studies have shown that people who have recently fallen in love have higher levels of cortisol. What helps continued monogamy? It appears to be oxytocin, which is released by the pituitary gland, so Kate must have very little of that hormone. Interestingly, oxytocin also appears to be a mediator in the relationship between dogs and owners for both animal and human, as Angus stares at me and I return his gaze, thinking sadly of Linda and scruff. Now, a little sympathy for Christine, please. She's 83 years old, a widow alone, having gone through two major, major traumas, in addition to her husband's death, the mental health needs of older people are severely neglected. So I would suggest therapy. When do I not suggest therapy? And perhaps some medication. I definitely agree that the laurels is not the answer. Or Christine, Peggy, and Jill can move in together. The average answer to the golden girls. Thank you for being a friend. Well, Angus is tugging at the lead, so time to go now. Till next week. I always thought that, because I actually bizarrely looked up the origins of the phrase "okay" the other day, because one of my children asked me where it came from. And I was told or found out that it was from all correct, deliberately spelled wrongly, which was used to, so, O-R-L and then K-O-R-R-E-K-T, to highlight the spelling inadequacies of a local politician. And he says "okay" was how old Kinderhook, which is what Martin Van Buren used to sign himself off as. So, who knows? I don't know. I'm very muddled now. Can I tell you something about Martin Van Buren? What? He is the only President of the United States who had English, not as his first language. Really? Was he German? Of Dutch parentage. Dutch? Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, and why do I know that arcane bit of information, Lucy? Because you do a podcast called "Ten American Presidents" where I feel. Oh, and did I tell you that it got into the top 100 iTunes charts in the UK and the US? You have mentioned that one or two hundred times, yes. Okay, great. All right. Then, well, I don't need to belabor that anymore. Right. Guess how old Auntie Cardboard is? Erm, she is... 80. 83. Oh, pretty close. See, because they're actors, they sound too young, don't they? Because they've all got really beautifully modulated voices. They've kept up the strength in their voice, so their voices don't sound weak, and therefore they don't sound old. So I was really surprised at that. Well... A pet pup from Joe Grundy who tells everyone, "I'm 93, yes, right, we know." But no, a few podcasts back, I actually said that our voices don't necessarily age as chronologically as, you know, our bodies. And when somebody, when somebody years, let's say, in their 70s and their 80s, you're confronted by the visage for physically what they look like, as opposed to actually what they sound like. You know, but anyway, maybe strip you off. It didn't, with a spoon, basically agreed with me that we need to be less me, none, Auntie Cardboard, without actually saying that. That was the telling thing. He very carefully refused to agree with you, yes. Yes, even though he agreed with me, it refused to acknowledge that he agreed with me. Did he send you cake? No, he did not. It's going to come, though, isn't it, with a spoon? Next caller in a row? Erm, the next two, we're going to jam together. Blythe Spirit and Yokel Bear, who kind of agreed with each other. Hello, dumb stomach, Yokel Bear here, calling from the UK's alternative capital city, Swindom, quite a bit this week. I want to talk about hell to start with. I was listening to Friday's episode, and I've decided, finally, I can define what hell means. It hippies with burning cedar branches. Kate's party was cringingly bad, just awful, just, and then they thought of Brian turning up in his dressing gown as well. But Kate, oh God, she's, I hate her so much, but I kind of love her as well. She reminds me of so many people that I met when I lived in Brighton. Oh God, she's done another half of it. Erm, she's a great character, but I found that episode, it pushed so many buttons for me. I really just, I just couldn't, I couldn't ever go to a party like that, or a house blessing like that. Because I would, I would just giggle all the way through it, mainly to compensate for the horror of being there. But it was a great episode anyway. But the other big mystery this week is, erm, talking of Brighton, what happened in Brighton? When Rex said to Toby, we don't want it to be like Brighton again, I want to know, I demand to know what happened in Brighton. I know what happened in Brighton should stay in Brighton, but in this case, I think it should be broadcast nationally to every artist listener. I'm intrigued, I'm really, really intrigued. Hello Dunty Dun, BlytheSpirit calling. Just caught up with the omnibus, and I have to say I'm enjoying the Kate Saga hugely. Erm, she really is beyond belief, isn't she? Erm, and I don't think anyone could fail to miss the irony of her attempting to clear out any past negativity from her cottage, only to replace it entirely with her own. But she really is persona non grater at the moment, isn't she? There's Phoebe, who'd caught Stander, Brian, who's angry with her, and Toby, who's emerging as this rather dodgy, unpleasant, Ruwe, who doesn't want anything to do with her. So yeah, and I think she's really a quite a good object lesson in that you get what you give. Erm, I have to say, I wouldn't have missed Brian turning up in his dressing gown to diffuse that viral arm, I wouldn't have missed that for the world. That was really, really amusing, very, enjoyed that very much. The main thing that really came across from this week, though, for me, was that the episodes were kind of a meditation on the nature of friendship, and there was a great deal of humanity and some really lovely little moments going on. Mike in the Cider Club with his friends, reflecting on the past, and basically saying that he wouldn't have got through without his mates, which I thought was, you know, really nice. And even Susan, in her kind of keeping up with Jonesy's kind of clumsy, Thatcherite way, has decided to organise a cocktail party, no beer and skittles for her, because that's what Jennifer would have done, to see off Mike and Vicki into their new life. And yes, OK, there's a social patina there, she's still social climbing and putting up a front, but underneath all of that, she is thinking about her friends and wanting to do something nice for them. What really came across for me, though, was the relationship between the senior ladies, and I was really, really touched by their concern for Christine. I thought that was really nice, and taking her out for the day, looking after buying her a fuchsia, they're all symbolic of the really tiny, but kind of significant things that people do for each other in friendship, just tiny little gestures, small things, but they mean quite a lot. And that was really, really emblematic, I think, for me, the nature of friendship across the ages as well, from old to young, we had an example of it, and the camaraderie that goes on, you know, no matter what age you are. Anyway, this week I have to say, crotchety person that I am, actually left me with rather a wall of fuzzy feeling, but a really nice balance of humour and irony and touching little scenarios, so all in all, really, really good week. So, I have decided that I am Yoko Bear's secret twin, as every time I listen to his call, I just sit there nodding and go, yep, yep, he just says exactly what I think about everything. The fact that she has no shame, we're embarrassed for Kate, she doesn't care because she doesn't have any shame. Kate does have a modicum of shame, and we discussed that because she does have a modicum of shame because she very, you know, she reversed that at that fair brother situation with a dignity, you know, intact, considering she'd chase them half way throughout the county for a whole week and a half. But the brass neck of her, when she's saying, you know, she's talking to Fallon, and saying how hard it is for people like us who can't afford a home. And she's saying that standing in the kitchen of the house that her father bought her, and Fallon's kind of going, this kind of incredibly non-committal, resisting the urge to smash her in there. Now, it does show that she's incredibly unaware, and, you know, as far as she's concerned, she's a great earth mother, eco warrior, ethically, she's incredibly pure and straight and incredibly virtuous. But, as I said before, I actually felt sorry for her this week, and she is somebody who is very alone, and I think she's more aware of it than we give her credit. You know, she blustered us away, and because she was somewhat spoiled by her father when she was growing up. No, it was her mother, really. It was Jennifer. It was always Brian, who kind of said what she'd done now. She was always considered... No, you know, that is true. But financially, she's always been taken care of. Be bailed out. And bailed out and kind of taken care of. Well, she's never had to actually live with any of the consequences of anything that she's done. No, no, no. Well, that's not quite true. I mean, financially, you know, she's had to live with losing her children, but once she just dumped the other two, she lost. But all things considered, a certain amount of pay plus with that character now, and I think it's going to reveal itself from here on in, because she cannot be in that house all by herself with no fee. But she, according to her, half the reason why she's come back to Borsick Church, is to be with her daughter. Yes, it's because you've got kicked out of South Africa. But, you know, to be with her daughter, and she's travelled, what, 8,000 miles in her daughter, you know, doesn't want to be within half a mile of her. That realization is going to hit home for her very soon, and we've got to see that aspect of Kate. She can't be this always incredibly unaware blunderbuss, you know, there's got to be this element where she goes, "You know what? I do need to look at myself." Yeah. Well, I don't know. I know people who were in their bath chairs who still haven't had that realization yet, but maybe it'll come for Kate. Who knows? Well, at least she needs to slightly wrestle with it. She needs to say, "Is my view of the world and how people operate within it? Correct." You know, even if she just has a little internal monologue with herself and a little larger with herself, and then she just goes back to being Kate. That is going to be incredibly realistic, because you cannot have three children, all three of her children despise her, don't want anything to do with her, you know, and be an earth mother. You just can't be. And she is intelligent. She's got no social intelligence. She's going to come up with points. She's going to say, "Why is it that other parents have children and they do things together? Why is it that mine don't Skype me from South Africa and my daughter doesn't want to be with me?" But anyone just repeating myself. But I feel a little bit sorry for her. Greetings, dummy dummies everywhere. It's Andrew Horn here. A couple of thoughts. Following up the conversation about love and madness, just think back last year to Roy and Lizzie, 10th Flapgate, Roy's behaviour that summer was indeed mad. In fact, I think several people referred to it as the type of madness. So absolutely with you, Lucy, on that pip. I agree. I don't think she will take up this job. I think she will stay, why bring in a new actress and then shunter off of the various options that we've been talking about, staying because she's pregnant with Rex's child, I think would be very poor, weak and not in character at all. Most likely being replacing Ruth while she's up, looking after Heather Pet in the North. However, I do think that they will kill Heather Pet off at the end of June, because that is when they were going to move up there. It would be sort of a timing irony, just as they would have moved up had they sold Brookers that she pops her clothes, which I said all along she would do. So end of June, please, the end of Heather Pet. And then one final thought. I was amused that Brian had the grand march from Iida, Vardy's Iida, playing as he got into his bath, which I thought was a bit strange to the choice. In the opera, originally it's a big big procession featuring elephants, live elephants on stage in the premiere. And I suppose his house home farm has been a bit of a procession of the exotics recently with Lillian coming to stay and Kate, but it did amuse me. I think I would have had, if I was having opera, it would probably be the humming chorus from Madame Butterfly. But yes, I did start me thinking about what would I play in the bath. Anyway, that's enough rambling for me, so be sure soon. To the pit. Andrew Horn, who, as is befitting, a founder member, in fact the only member of the Lucifer Friedman family, agrees with me. And about Roy and Lizzie, love and madness. Well, no, not about love and madness. And he said, look at look Roy and Lizzie, look how completely nuts Roy went just with infatuation. And he was acting like a thing possessed. He was just ready to chuck in everything for basically an urge. He also agrees that Pit won't take the job that they'll kill Heather, he records are going to kill Heather Pet off at the end of June, because that's when they were due to move up to Prada anyway. So there will be a sort of a synchronicity about that. I'm not sure we should be booking people in for death, Andrew. It's kind of leaving me with a bit of an old taste about that. But anyway, and he noticed as well Brian listening to the grand march. He had a different tune that he would play in the bath. What would you play in the bath? Well, I'm not big on my intimate knowledge of classical works coming from an estate in Brum, but kind of halfway down that road. You don't have to not come from an estate. Shut up, shut up. I grew up on a whole diet of reggae and electronic music. And for me, Radio 3 was a discovery round about the age of 20. I didn't grow up with Vivaldi and with Bach and you know, et cetera. I didn't. I came from a traditional, there was an immigrant working-class background where that wasn't our music. It's great. It's smashing. It's super. Right? So if I was in the bath, a little bit of Sebastian Telier. Now, he did this song called, I'm going to butcher the pronunciation of this. La Retenelle. And it's the most beautiful piano, very orchestral and classic sounding piece of Electronica. And it's this kind of clever electronica that doesn't sound like it's electronic music because he's a producer, an electronic producer. But he does these things with pianos and strings and it's incredibly stirring. And it was an absolute dance floor smash in the mid-2000s. And DJs would play it, but there's just clear the dance floor because you can't dance to it. You cannot dance to it at all. But it is beautiful beyond belief. And I'll whack it at the end of "Dumb to Dumps of People" and hear it. It's one of my favourite pieces of music. And it's the type of thing that I would chill out to in the bath or a little bit of air and air. And this whole thing about kind of, the French in the early 2000s, the mid-2000s, killed it with electronic, beautiful music. And Sebastian Telier was like the most cerebral, but air. Bloody beautiful. What about you? What are you listening to in the bath, Lucy? What would I play in the bath? Hide and seek. Right, do treats of the week! After an ad break, yes. Hello, I'm Sarah Smith, proud sponsor of "Dumb to Dump." If you want to polish up your Albion, give your optics a wipe or even mop up after your ferrets, Sarah Smith cloths are eco-friendly, reusable and washable. And, you know, a bit posh. Sarah Smith, available from Sainsbury's, for the posher washer, proud sponsors of "Dumb to Dump." Fancy getting your mouth around something warm? Something comforting, you can really get a firm grip on. Why not buy a "Dumb to Dump" mug from the shop at www.DumbDDump.com? Those damn lovely. And my name is Kate. My name's Joe. My name's Nicola. My name is Suzanne Hacky. My name is Mary Parkinson. I'm in Hope House as a client. I have had addiction issues. I'm at Hope House, I'm an inclusion and eating disorder. Heroine, Craig, addiction, methadone and alcohol. I'm here because it got really bad. Hope House started off as an 8-bit unit in May to fail. And we're in all women units. I've read an article about Hope House some months before, and when I read about it, what I read or what I took away from the article was that this was a place where women worked to help other women. Coming soon to iTunes, 1001 Conversations, a new podcast from Royfield Brown. Good day, everyone. Millie Bell here. Sharon Evans this week. In upset that the ball says, "You just have to accept it and move on." Peggy, you unempathetic old Harryden. Christine was flooded and looted five minutes ago while you sat at home stroking your surviving pussy like a thwarted bomb villain. Rupert Brown in Ambrageade said, "Anti-cardboards lost interest in her garden. There's no future in it." Well, somebody had to say it, didn't they? Jackie Fipps in Ambrageadek said, "Jill is being very hypocritical with poor Christine. Surely she remembers how she felt after her burglary incident and has now decamped live with David et al." Patty Smith said, "Jill should be a little more understanding of Christine's plight, considering she wouldn't wait to leave bleed, cottage after she was burgled." When Peggy and Jill were discussing Christine's plight, they talked of the laurels as if at this room 101. It's not a jail. She will be able to do everything she used to do without the hassle of running and maintaining her house. Alexia Nicole in Archers' Appreciation says, "Oh dear, the actual shame of saying can't you say something better has come along." And the answer clearly being, "No, leave me alone, you scary, desperate woman." I did imagine Kate to still have a strangely purple tinge, though maybe that put him off? And Sherman also wanted a comment in "Ambergetics" about Kate and said, "Oh, look, Kate, it's Friday time to move out." And Sherman in "Ambergetics" wanted to point out that her pay fever is terrible this morning and was bad yesterday. And she wondered how Linda was doing this, some other person hasn't been mentioned and usually do. Now, Jennifer Preston in Archers' Appreciation asked the question that I was blasting to have answered, "What happened in Brighton? Toby? We didn't get told what happened in Brighton, we want to know, please." Helen Buzz Dugan in "Upset of the Bull" said, "I predict people start her new job and not last more than a couple of months in it." Two reasons. One, practical and one ideological. Granny Heather's health will keep Ruth away a lot, and David will be struggling to cope with Brookfield on his own. And she will find it increasingly hard to believe in the mega farm approach. At Webster, she'll return to Brookfield and direct. Susan Jones in "The Archers Anonymous" says, "Are we heading for a point where Brian becomes so fed up with Kate's relentless antics that he cuts her off without a penny?" It sounds as though she has no intention of doing exams or continuing with her course, so she will soon be free to seek full-time employment. Two people think that she actually has the capacity at 30, whatever, to learn and change her ways if she's left responsible for earning her own cake. I'd like to see her left to try, but I'm not sure what the outcome will be. Simon George said, "I've just listened to last night's episode and I would like to thank the script writers for that image of a wet, naked Brian, scrabbling around the bathroom for his phone." Oh, he posted that up in Ambridge View. Oh, I have to say Fiona Weir, an archer's appreciation, put a fabulous appreciation bingo up. So you cross one off every time you hear some of the following, and here are some of the examples. These are mainly posts from people. I don't want any more new characters, or Where's Scruff? Or there are so many unfinished storylines, or is that bottle empty already? The Vic at Nowland sound just the same, Obey are fantastic appreciation bingo. I encourage more of these, I must say. And we said, "We need to buy Kate's and moving in present, and we ask you lovely people on the dumpty dump page if you've had any ideas." Cara Littlewood Poirees suggested a form. Alison Jones said pictures of an Ollie and CFO as she seems to have forgotten her younger two children. Kate Newey said a framed copy of her university timetable, module outlines and deadlines, and this is the mission framed by the bill. Peter my book said to suggest we get her a life. Lisa Thompson said, "Dumb is by the parenting and a toolset to hang her dream catches." Diane Talford suggested a fire extinguisher and a copy of how to stop being a complete arse. Della Hickey said a gag. Rosie Taylor suggested a session with Lindert. Fong Shui, the cottage. Andrew Mince suggested some rattle powder. Susanna Taylor suggested hemlock. Katherine Vajant suggested a large bag of bark, shipping and a six pack of spiritual darmers. Doug Fonte, Fonte said a kick in the butt. So until next week. Thank you, Millie Bell. That was great. And now let's see your hashtag #TheArchersTweet of the Week. Kate Marsilier, who said, "Thanks for the tweet along this morning. I'm off to get drunk on Vintage Burgundy, invent a better rat trap while smudging a fate." Christine Adgo made a very good point and said, "I doubt Brian's wine is vegan." Yes. It's all very well for us to shift our principle sometimes, isn't it? MJH said, "For those of you confused by which is which, like Ant and Deck, Rex is always in the left stereo channel and Toby on the right. If we had any ham?" Said, "Whenever Adam talks about farming, I have a little nap. It's the middle aged variant of a drinking game." And "Treat of the Week" was Clary Love, who said, "I'm yet to be convinced that Mike won't find a toy milk float and decide to stay." Oh, actually there's two tweets of the week. Because the other one, sorry, I'm not supposed to do this, was "Willam Harvey," who said, "Should I blow my trumpet again then?" Yeah. He said, "If I heard Vicky shout, 'Allow surprise, I'd reach for my gum.'" [laughter] Yes, that's it. You know what, loose? Yes. Those tweets, those hashtags, the tweets of the week, they were good this week. Good. Some weeks, they're not quite as good as others. But this week, I thought, you know, you found the best hashtag the arches. How do you manage to do that? What's the secret? It is a great skill, and I work on it for at least six months beforehand. How is that even possible considering the tweets have come up? It isn't. I'm lying. You can't do that, though. We're affiliated to a BBC institution. No, we're not! We're not! God, take that out, otherwise we'll be out. Oh, drums. [laughter] We've already pissed off Baker Foil Playmabile. [laughter] Let's not add the BBC into the mix. All right. She just goes to shop news, then. Yes, that's a safe one. Yeah. Now, at shop news this week, we spoke to Cafe Press. Right. Folks, because you have been asking why aren't there any tea tales in our store? Now, Cafe Press is because we ain't got none. So, we asked them to, and they said they're going to look into it, and they're going to get back to us. But don't hold your breath, but at least I did ask. So, what I might do is see if there isn't another store somewhere on the interwebs that allows you to print things on tea tales. And if there is, I'll whack them in our store. So, all you people that want, don't be dumb logos on tea tales, you'll be happy soon. If not, you won't be. And that's just tough, sorry. Anyway, now, this, oh, so this week, we've had stuff bought from. Oh, is that me? Paul Douglas London. You've taken out what they've bought. I have, because I hate it. Yeah. But Lucy, the whole point is, right, the people go, oh, I didn't know they did tea shoots, well, I didn't know they did. Of course, people know we do tea shirts. Everyone keeps posting pictures of themselves wearing the damn things. Okay, tea shows is a bad example. That's a wrong example. But a splash of gin hit flask. Yeah, that's okay. It's just the clothes I don't like. Anyway, you can say it. I'll just say my bit. Well, you've taken it out now, haven't you? Well, it was my bit. I took out my bit. Pamela Donaldson from West Sussex. Oh, still. A hello, you two tea shirt. Andy Bent in Greater Manchester, splash of gin mugs. Now, remember, folks, when you buy this stuff, to completely seal the deal you need to then go on to social media where it's the Twitters or the Book of Face and go post a picture of themselves and Morgan NYNY did that on Friday. Didn't he lose? He did. It was great. And he was serious, though, didn't they? But they were a handsome couple of work colleagues, weren't they? With their Dumpty Dum mugs in New York. Yeah. Probably some swanky, kind of skyscraper. They've also got an awful lot of questions to answer for the next six months, haven't they? What's that? But they wish they'd never done it. You two, folks, if you want to buy some stuff, you can go to dumptydum.com/shop to get your merch. Now, reviews, news, news of reviews. Where were you, Lucy? I sang. Did you? Yeah. Oh, okay. Sorry. Now, we are far away from the big 200. We're at 196 if you can do the mass. These lovely people have helped us to get even closer to our goal. Sandicated? And now, this one is going to be a bit of a puzzle. D-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r a week that how much did that couple win for the U-Romeleons? Would you rather have the U-Romeleons that £96m payout, or would you rather have a Dumpty Dum mug and some Sarah Smith Cloths? - Mug and Cloths every time. - Exactly, exactly. - Did you say Glen Fuller loves just posted a picture of himself waving his cloths around? - Bless him? - No, he did like some kind of morrist answer. - Yes, Sarah's very impressed. She says, "Oh, he's a Dumpty Dum celebrity." - Isn't he just? He just- - I remember you can also be awarded the Order of John Archer by emailing us if your name is John, or you can prove that you have a real link to a gentleman who goes by the name of John and you will be knighted John the 8th. You can also go to patreon.com, search for Dumpty Dum, and you can donate two dollars a show, which is about £1.30. And this week we have new Patreons, and they are- - Rosie Taylor- - Yokele Bear! - Sarah Harding. - Sarah Harding? Isn't she the one from Girls Allowed? - This is Sarah Harding from Bristol who I actually quite like. I've got a thing for Sarah Harding from Bristol, she's a little bit ficed on the old Twitters like her lots. - And Doug Salty C Dog fault. - And also what's been lovely about some of the Patreons this week is you've gone way above and beyond your two dollars a show. - Oh, thank you. - So those of you that have done that, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. - Now, if you just don't want to commit to a monthly subscription on your card and you don't, and you've all up to your needs in Dumpty Dum merch, you can just donate by clicking on the donate button on Dumpty Dum.com. And this week's donations were- - Jim O'Hara. - And K.R. Whitbread. Remember you can send us a voice message via the site or you can call us on 020 3 0 3 1 3 1 0 5 and ordinary phone to leave us a message because that's what we need, we need you to call it. You can also ping us an email if you like or you can tweet me on the Twitters or I'm @royfieldersr.o.i in your F-I-E-L-D. - Me @ Lucy V. Freeman. - Or the- - And me? Oh, is it me? - No, but well done, your favourite engine. I like that. - You're one of the ball of real art, most of the time, I tell you. - The both of us at- - Dumpty Dum. Or Sarah Smith @ Sarah_Smith - And of course you can follow the plutches on the Twitters at the plutches. - So please, please, please keep those reviews coming because we want to be top of the podcast charts before Brian beats Kate to death with her own smudge stick. Thank you for that, AJ, you cloak and dagger genius, you. - AJ's got a great laugh, can we hire her to just keep listening and just chuckle away all through the thing, it's great. - Well, we're more than happy to do that. So can we get you on again soon? - Yes, I'd love to, I'd love to. I want to talk about Kate. - Oh, all right. Go. - Yeah. - Do you want to talk about her now, or do you want to have a think and ring in or something? - No, no, no, I'll have a think and ring in. I'll tell you what, the phone lines have not stopped talking about Kate this week. - And that's what I love about her. - I used to hate her. - You used to hate her, but this week was just a work of genius, it really was. - It was amazingly written this week. The gags this week were fantastic. - No, it absolutely was. And Friday's episode, and the fact that it was to contrast two father and daughters. - That's exactly what I was just about to say. - And how the one relationship is balanced and, you know, there's a clear love between the one set of the arches family and the father and daughter, and then the dysfunctional Aldridge, you know, side of the arches clan. But I actually feel sorry for Kate, to be honest with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because she's so, she basically is alone. It's not that she's a loner, but she's absolutely alone. A daughter can't stand her. Her father is just about giving up, you know, trying to help her anymore. And it's counterproductive to help her anymore kind of materially. She doesn't realise how good she's got things, but she's absolutely self-obsessed. But I think Kate actually realises she is alone. But how she mastered that is this kind of supposed theoretical great love of the world and community and the environment or whatever. So she's incredibly giving and whatever. But it is all incredibly narcissistic, and it's all turned back on her kind of self-development. But she's, she's, she's aware that she's alone, but she's completely unable to fix it because she has no empathy. She can't imagine how anyone else feels about anything. No, all of her empathy is theoretical and political and unethical. It's not actually human, you know, she doesn't have those real human relationships. And I just thought that Friday's episode was literally a stand-up and clap in terms of he's a father and daughter who work together, respect each other and absolutely love and understand each other. And even though David doesn't want Pip to go away to to Brazil, he understands that she might have to. And interestingly for me, the, you know, there's a really telling line is, are you going to go and let your hair down after exams? And she says, no, well, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, where is Kate? It's all about letting her hair down. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when she hasn't bloody done anything. Absolutely. You know, she's missed dead luck because the next, the new thing is that she's going to quit, isn't she? Well, she said, oh, I'm beginning to think that maybe my life's journey isn't this way. And if he was going, what, what, what, what would you mean? What do you mean? And, you know, the one thing that she's got that could be seen as semi-constructive in her life, she's just about to, you know, chuck that away as well. But I put that scene with Toby when she basically realized that she'd been used right, Roy Lee was incredibly, I thought that was incredibly well written and incredibly touchingly acted because I thought she had the timing on that. Just right, actually, when that's that, that kind of sense of this man actually doesn't really like me and I have been used. Yeah. And now how do I get out of this in a way? But I did, I did actually feel a modicum of, of sadness for her then. Well, this is it. But I thought she handled it really well. Yeah, she just, she would have been that. No, she was caught, she kind of, she came back and she kind of thought, okay, right? This is the deal. Fine. And she sort of said, Oh, look, here's your brother who you were texting and he's just walked through the door. And he said, with your busy, well, it's been great. And just sort of sarcastic and resigned and everything all at once. I thought that was brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. And I wish she'd use, she'd use that. She's obviously very intelligent and you wish she'd use that intelligence for something useful rather than just turning it inward, like some massive stupid laser and just magnifying herself. She could do a lot of good if she actually looked out, not in. Yeah. So, Ben, as there's no Nigel and you love Nigel, who's your favourite character at the moment, AJ? Oh, that's, I think that's really, really interesting because I have a soft spot for Will and I think that will probably be... Right, let's move on. The news, let's wrap this show up. This is certainly my favourite, but I can, I do understand slightly why he's the colossal pain on the backside that he has been. I don't know whether the whole kind of wedding reconciliation is a, is a long-term thing. I hope it is, but I do understand why he, why he's been like that. But who's my favourite, favourite character? Oh, that's a toughie. That really is. I'm just trying to think, is there a character that I look forward to getting out? I... If you need to think, let's just say Fallon. Oh, Fallon's just wonderful stuff. She's amazing. Well, you know... Do you not like her? No, no, I love Fallon. She's my, she's my favourite character, but she's changed somewhat. She's changed somewhat from how, at least I pitched and remembered her, kind of like mid to late, kind of 2000s and stuff, you know, where I think she was a little bit slightly too cool for school and, you know, singing in an indie band, etc. But you know what? She's growing up. She's growing up. So, you know, time moves on. I didn't, did I miss it? Why wasn't she drinking at Kate's house cleansing ceremony? I assumed that was because she was driving. But it wasn't, it wasn't mentioned. So, but I assumed that that was, that was... I'm such a conspiracy theorist. I was like, ah, it's like on, if you're watching a Miss Marple. Oh, that's all, that's all. Got me thinking, ah, wait, no, no, no, did you see? She said she was allergic to pears. Ah-ha-ha, you see. I'm going to full on Miss Marple. Interesting. Oh, well done, Lucy. Tangle myself up, Lucy. That's amazing. I'm going to go in a way, I might have to start looking up pregnant. Wait a minute, you didn't do a scene about that, that line of dialogue there, AJ. How dare an interview? Yeah, I missed that one. Sebastian Thiele's Larritournel, the humming chorus from Madam Butterfly, followed by The Grand March from Aida by Verdi. Welcome to Songs I Play in the Bath. Where's the soap? Yes, it does, rather, doesn't it? [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

The super funny The Plarchers grace the show, they are as secretive as Mi5

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