Charlotte Higgins on The Archers: a car-crash of a confession

George Grundy came clean – at last! But will he be grassed up? Or can great-uncle Clive Horrobin save the day? All this, plus romance at the vet’s in our review of the rustic BBC soap

George finally cracked! He confessed all – that he’d been driving Alice Carter’s car when it crashed, endangering the lives of several people, that he moved his slumbrous, drunken passenger into the driver’s seat to incriminate her. But his admission was made only to his parents, Emma and Will – for whom some atavistic adherence to the “code of the Grundys” means it’s out of the question to grass up their own son. Instead, they have tried to persuade George to do the right thing of his own volition. This has resulted in the oft-whimpered refrain: “I can’t go to prison!”

The boy, alas, has as much moral backbone as an invertebrate. He ended up enlisting the aid of – sensation! – his notorious great-uncle, Clive Horrobin. As longtime listeners will know, Clive is the very worst offshoot of that (now largely reformed) clan. He once held up the village shop in an armed robbery, and as a result of harbouring him, his sister, Susan Carter, ended up inside for six months in 1993.

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