Laurence Scott's A2 Media Blog: Textual analysis: The Archers

'The Archers', BBC Radio 4, broadcast on 18th September 2012.

The accents of the characters are a defining feature of The Archers. They define the location because they are stereotypical farmers' accents (excluding Pawel); you immediately imagine farms, tractors and countryside. Since radio is theatre of the mind, the accents will be important in my radio play and I will have to pick my actors wisely. Accents also help to develop the characters. Everyone who listens to The Archers will have their own unique image in their mind's eye of each character. From their accent alone, you can tell the character's age, class and even job.

Tone of voice in The Archers varies from character to character and, more importantly, changes depending on which characters are speaking to each other and their relative status in the community e.g. Jenifer speaks to Pawel in a mother-like way as Pawel is young.

Speech is a good determiner of how a character expresses their personality. Tim Crook, in Radio Drama, challenges the perception that radio is a blind medium. I would say that the absence of the audience seeing the character's clothing, duologue is the best way of telling someone's personality and how they express that personality. For example, when speaking to Pawel, Jenifer shows that she is wise and family-orientated.

The mode of address is not direct (i.e. the characters are not speaking directly to the audience). The dialogue tells the story with the listeners as audio onlookers. The advantage of this is it is more realistic. However it can be hard to follow at times, particularly if you loose track of the dialogue!

The rhythm of speech varies from character to character in The Archers. The rhythm depends on the character's age and who they are speaking to. For example, the old characters such as Joe speak slower than the younger characters.

The Archers uses what I am going to call a 'snapshot' style of dialogue where you don't hear the full scene. What I mean by this is that the dialogue does not give you the full story - it leaves some of it for you to fill in for yourself. For instance, the start of the episode is part way through breakfast.

The theme tune for The Archers is unmistakable! Arguably one of the most recognizable themes from both TV and Radio. It is upbeat with quite a simple melody. I will be composing my own theme tune so The Archers will be some good inspiration.

One of the key things I noticed when listening to this episode is how the sound is balanced and mixed to make it sound like the 'action' is happening around you. I will make good use of this myself.

One thing that could be better about this episode is when Joe is in the pub celebrating his birthday, there should be more ambient sound (unless it was a very quiet pub!) of people talking, eating and drinking.

There is good use of sound effects e.g. the plates at the start of the episode and the knocking at Jenifer's door.

The sound in The Archers is mainly diegetic - it is part of the world of the characters and the characters can hear the sounds.

The pacing of The Archers is quite slow. Perhaps this is to reflect the pace of life in a small farming community in the countryside? It is also quite consistent - the pacing doesn't speed up or slow down throughout the episode. The only point it slows down even slightly is when David starts to cry and silence is used for a brief moment.

As you would expect, sound levels are consistent throughout the play, there are no extreme variations in the duologue. The loudest part is the theme tune to catch the listener's attention. The times that sound levels are used well, along with mixing the sound left or right, is when a person is a bigger distance away from where the main 'action' is happening e.g. the landlord of the pub.

The Archers is edited with a silence (approximately 3 to 5 seconds) in between the scenes to make it clear where one scene starts at the other ends. I like this technique so I will probably use it myself in my radio drama. There is also a fade in and a fade out of each scene to make it a smooth transition.

What I have learned from The Archers:

Laurence Scott's A2 Media Blog