Viva Brighton Issue #58 December 2017

BOOKS AND BOBS
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BOOK REVIEW: CUSTARD, CULVERTS AND CAKE:
ACADEMICS ON LIFE IN THE ARCHERS
It is the tragedy of many English people’s lives that in their youth they aspire to
Oxbridge, only by middle age to settle for Ambridge. Cara Courage and Nicola
Headlam bring the Dreaming Spires to the Steaming Shires in a collection of
essays by diverse hands that takes an interdisciplinary approach to The Archers. With
abstracts, diagrams, tables, and an index this is a very useful book for all Archers fans
and lovers of the countryside. Here we have papers on: Birdwatching; Class and
Gender in Ambridge; Educating Ambridge; Geography; The Religious Traditions of
Ambridge; Ambridge Online; and The Case of Helen and Rob. Lest you snigger, let me remind you that media
studies shouldn’t just focus on the semiotics of the boxset. With over 18,000 episodes The Archers constitutes a
chronicle of English life since its first broadcasts in the early 1950s. Its roots lie not in the soil of an imagined
community but in the Ministry of Agriculture’s plan to encourage farmers to reform their methods in the era
of post-war rationing, and this palpable design is part of what is deconstructed here. My favourite essays are on
the rural theology of Ambridge by Jonathan Hustler and Phoebe Aldridge’s experience of applying to Oxford by
Felicity Macdonald-Smith. Perhaps future editions will feature Phoebe’s own contribution to the distinguished
field of Archerology. John O’Donoghue
Custard, Culverts, and Cake: Academics on Life in The Archers, edited by Cara Courage & Nicola Headlam,
Emerald Publishing, £10.98
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