The Archers is a masterclass in how not to write a monologue

If you’ve been listening to The Archers lately, you’ll know how tedious monologues can be. The BBC has received so many complaints about the stream of soliloquys that has dominated the episodes since lockdown, that Mohit Bakaya, controller of Radio 4, has been compelled to issue an apology.

The new format — introduced so that the cast and crew could follow social-distancing rules — has proven especially unpopular because, as some listeners have pointed out, the producers might easily have stitched recordings together to keep the drama going. Instead, they’ve more or less dispensed with dialogue between characters in favour of a watered-down talking heads approach.

Given that it’s usually recorded in a dedicated studio with live sound effects, The Archers was bound to be different in the Covid era. It seems ungrateful to moan that things aren’t as good as they used to be when, quite frankly, we should feel lucky to have anything new to hear or watch or see. In truth, though, the problem isn’t so much the format as the content of the monologues themselves. If the BBC has anything to be sorry for, it’s the sheer empty-headedness of the characters now Shirley Valentining to their walls in Ambridge.

A monologue, if it is to be successful, must do two things. The first is to reveal something more about a character than you would get from that character in ordinary conversation. The second is to sound utterly enthralling. As Alan Bennett once said: ‘“Talking heads” is a synonym in television for boredom, and here is just one head, not two.’ On radio, where the boredom stakes are higher, that head needs to speak each thought as if it were a confession if it is to strike home.