I listened years ago and it didn't really get me enough to keep listening. Now that you can listen on podcast and the omnibus on sundays it's easy to catch up when you have the time. It's not hard to get onboard. I've listened for a couple of years now but although I don't know the history I'm catching up as I go. It's another English institution that is precious. Like all soap dramas sometimes it's great as stories come to conclusions other times it just rolls along. It's not too late for sure.

I'd start listening now if I were you.

I've been a fan since the mid-80s. Hepworth of this parish was right (I know!) when he talked about much of the beauty of The Archers being in the fact that it's not a slave to the tabloids, so the stories are largely unknown ahead of TX.

Last year was one of the best I can remember, with two characters even going on the run to central America. That was a great storyline.

Cooking weekday dinner with the 7pm slot, Sunday breakfast with the omnibus. Two of life's greatest pleasures. More often than not I listen at 2pm, too.

it's fairly easy to pick up the current storylines, and like many soaps you can drop in and out. There's also a very useful book called "Who's Who in the Archers" which comes out every year and gives you a brief guide to the current characters and their interactions (who's bonked who, who's really the father of who, why x doesn't get along with y etc)- takes about 10 minutes to read and will make it all much clearer.

(now my wife) first moved into my cool bachelor pad, she was horrified to discover that I was an Archers regular. Now she's hooked, utterly.

The recently introduced podcast makes for ease of consumption too. Enjoy!

all soaps are bad

it's beyond soap. And it's got Tamsin Greig in it.

daughter's ex husband plays (or did - I'm not sure as I've never bothered with it) one of the characters. Apparently the character is really nice but he's a complete twat.

Sadly, or luckily, I can't recall his name or the character he plays/played.

Nigel.

....works for British Steel (or Corus as they now call it).

"Now on Radio 4, The Archers - and Joe covets the vicar's sausages".

Priceless. There was a whole page of these in Q some time in the early-90s, I think.