Did you hear those bloodcurdling screams from Kirsty? Those long-drawn-out wails that echoed horrifically through the ancient walls of St Stephen’s Church last Thursday — in a strange, unwelcome echo of Nigel’s unfortunate descent from the roof of Lower Loxley in 2011? They were enough to make every woman’s blood run cold. Kirsty, the bride-to-be, was not just dumped by Tom on her way to the altar but also left dangling in all her finery at the church gate while Tom (what a waster of an Archer) sobbed his heart out in the vestry.
Did you see it coming? (I didn’t.) It was a bit puzzling that sparky Kirsty should have gone so doolally about the bridal thing, buying not just one but two hyperinflated dresses in her efforts to ‘look beautiful for Tom’ (pass the sick bucket). Tom, too, was even more annoyingly self-obsessed than usual, constantly arguing with his Dad and putting money down on a new-build house that’s not even in Ambridge. But who would have guessed he would bottle out at the very last minute, letting Kirsty parade herself through the village in her wedding get-up before telling her it was all off? What a gruesome Ambridge moment. It was as if Kirsty was being chastised, medieval style. And for what? Audience figures? To save the soap from becoming too bland, too safe, too ordinary?
No doubt Kirsty’s screams were given an added charge by her (or rather Annabelle Dowler’s) realisation that it’s curtains for her as an Archers character/actress (just as Nigel’s screams were Graham Seed’s final, memorable contribution after 28 years). Sure enough, Dowler’s name doesn’t appear in this week’s cast list in Radio Times. In a way that must be a relief — for Kirsty and Dowler.
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