大象传媒

Helen Aitken is the newest addition to the writing team for The Archers. An avid listener, Helen joined The Archers production team for a week through the 大象传媒’s work experience scheme.

She subsequently returned as a production coordinator and began to submit story ideas. She was then commissioned to write for the first time in April 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic put paid to those plans but now seven months on Helen’s first episodes are being aired.

How does The Archers feature in your life as a listener?

My mum started listening before I was born, so I’ve grown up hearing The Archers. But I didn’t start actively listening until I was about 12. Once I started trying to follow the stories, I couldn’t stop asking questions. Who was related to who, where do they all live, why don’t certain characters get on? It was brilliant to have someone to fill me in on the backstory, but I’m sure I ruined her listening experience for quite a while!

After my work experience placement, when I started to be offered freelance work at The Archers, I did wonder if I’d stop enjoying the programme. I was one of those people who avoided pictures of the actors, so it took a bit of adjustment to suddenly see them in person (of course I’m glad to have met everyone, the cast are all lovely people!). Sometimes, if I’m part of the studio team and I see that it’s almost 7 o’clock, even if the actors are in the middle of a take, a part of my brain still thinks “oh no, I’m going to miss The Archers!”.

What’s your earliest Archers memory?

Because The Archers has always been present in my life I’m not sure I can identify my earliest memory. I think the animal storylines were the first to make a real impression on me – Brookfield adopting Monty the muntjac deer and David shooting a badger definitely stand out. Eccles the peacock arrived at The Bull just after I was born, and I was furious when Kenton ran him over last year. I have to confess that I pitched the story of Prospero’s arrival mainly because I couldn’t bear to hear The Bull without a peacock!

What did you learn about The Archers while being part of the production team and was any of this helpful when it came to being a writer for the programme?

The biggest thing I learned, which seems obvious in hindsight, is how much work goes on behind the scenes to make everything happen. Being a production coordinator means offering support to just about everyone on the team, which has given me an opportunity to see how every job fits together.

In normal times The Archers is a fine-tuned, well-oiled machine that moves at an incredible speed. When Covid brought everything to a halt in March 2020 it took an extraordinary feat of hard work and ingenuity to get things going again. The lesson I take from all that is that no matter what I’m doing – booking actors or writing the scripts – I’m part of a team. Everyone is relying on me to do the job in front of me to get the programme on-air.

What is the process of writing The Archers like? Is there anything that surprised you?

When I was given the opportunity to write I thought I had a good idea of what to expect. I’d practised a few times – that’s how I got my first commission. I’d take the story documents home, just like commissioned writers do, and go through the process of turning the storylines into scripts. As a production coordinator I’d read more scripts and been to more recordings than any new writer would usually have access to, so I wasn’t expecting any surprises.

However, when I heard the cast read-through it suddenly hit me that this was real. I was surprised by how scary that felt. Creating The Archers is an awesome responsibility, and I hope my scripts have done it justice!

It would be good to have a go at writing for Pip. We’re pretty much the same age, and I’ve always related to her from that point of view. I do find her frustrating though. I feel like she assumes that she’ll inherit Brookfield, but with Josh and Ben coming up behind her who knows? If she were real, I’d tell her she needs to work for a future in farming rather than assuming Brookfield will come to her. I strongly believe that Pip should get there in the end, not least because it’s about time a woman inherited Brookfield. But she needs to sort out what she wants from her life and earn it.

What was it like hearing your first episodes?

I was very nervous before hearing the first one. Of course I had absolute faith in everyone else on the team who involved in making the episodes. I didn't want to let anyone down. I'm very pleased with how the episode came out though. I'm my own harshest critic, so I'm already giving myself lots of feedback on what I can do better (hopefully) next time. If I may be a tiny bit self-congratulatory, I enjoyed Susan's comment about Neil regarding her vegetarian chilli as a failed experiment. That's the joy of The Archers, on the one hand it's just a throwaway line, but if you know the backstory it's also laden with subtext...

You’ve written the text for the official 2021 calendar of The Archers which is a special 70th anniversary edition – what was that like?

Writing the calendar was the perfect excuse to dig into the archive and read up on some of the biggest stories of the last seventy years. I’m sure some listeners will remember hearing everything the calendars mentions, but I’ve tried to relate everything back to current storylines. Even if someone hasn’t been listening for long, they should be able to read the calendar and see how it all fits together.

One of the things I did as part of my research was read the first week of episodes. It struck me that the programme hasn’t changed much in 70 years – in a good way. Although The Archers was partially conceived as an educational tool, it’s clear that everyone understood right from the beginning that listeners would keep coming back because of the characters and the relationships. The world is very different now, but there’s still room to look at it from a uniquely “Archers” point of view.

What’s your fantasy future Archers storyline?

This is a really hard question. I almost want to hold back my best answers in case I can pitch them to the programme, in which case they might become spoilers. Something I think probably couldn’t happen, because life isn’t that kind to the Grundys, is Ed and Emma becoming very rich. Maybe they’ll breed a few more champion Texels? Perhaps they could buy the Home Farm farmhouse, just to rub it in Jennifer’s face. I can see Emma in 50 years as the new Peggy Woolley of Ambridge, throwing her money around and winding up her relatives and friends.

Also, I’d love to hear what Grace Archer would say to Jill if she had the chance. I guess someone would have to get into necromancy to make this work? Jill continues to have a very happy life, whereas Grace died tragically young, and I’ve always thought it was unfair of Jill to resent her for being Phil’s first wife. I’d quite like Grace to tell her that!