Rob has done a hatchet job on her, poor little boy.

Indeed, in gangster parlance Henry has been flipped ..

There was no dialogue from him when he saw her, only Pat saying it's ok not to hug, which suggests to me that he was hiding behind Pat. I can't exactly explain it, but that rings true to me. Small children are often awkward in that way, whether it's from shyness or they are overcome by emotion.
I remember a son of close friends, who I was very close to up to the age of 3, when we moved away and a year later when his family came to visit us was hiding for 10 minutes until we fell back into our old friendship and were unseparable.

There was something creepy about the way he didn't react naturally to Helen crying.
Usually when a child sees their parent cry they become distressed too, or at least show concern.

Rob has probably really messed him up

The Henwee actor still sounds jarringly toddler-like for his age.

I think Henry is played by a young girl, does anyone know? But yes very toddler-like and very irritating.

He's like one of those dolls that you poke in the tummy and it comes out with a stock phrase.

His acting reminds me of all those painful British child actors we had on kids' programmes back in the 70s. I just try to gloss over it and concentrate on the content of the -often terribly trite- dialogue he's given. But I get the feeling the actor's age or limitations dictate how little airtime and script he's given, which then impacts on how few interactions with Helen we see. Hence lots of exposition from other characters.

Absolutely what I was going to say when I read this thread earlier this morning. Except those dolls are more animated.

It may not be a child actor of course. I remember listening to something where it was described how the child's voice was played by an adult using a baby voice. I can't remember if it was about the Archers though. In fact possibly not because I also think Normal Painting once joked that he had never met his on air grandchildren, because their lines were recorded separately and edited in. I can't see why you would do that unless the performers really were children.

I heard him say that on desert island discs many years ago!

The actress who plays Shula was reknowned for voicing the parts of children. As well as playing Shula, she played the young Elizabeth Archer, also Kenton as a child and even Adam Macy (until his voice broke!)

So it could be more than likely that an adult is playing Henry.

She played her own twin brother as a child! Clearly budgets were very tight in the early days!

An adult playing the part of a five year old would make a lot of sense of the voice we are hearign though.

I wish it were done as entertainingly as in Bugsy Malone.

It never was very convincing when adults played children - I grew up with it - and almost never done any more. An older actor might occasionally be used for a very melodramatic part but it's far more common to record a child of roughly the right age off set. You can hear the difference in the sound quality when Henry is talking from the rest of the scene. Many of his lines are also pretty much ordinary day to day conversation, anyway - 'OK', 'I'm not hungry'.

He's also not pictured and on the website, and isn't named as anyone other than 'Henry Archer'.

All of which is a long winded way of saying that Henry is played by a child!

Well maybe there are, but if they have, a lot of newbies have been attracted to back fill. It seems that the programme has gained nearly half a million listeners in the last few months. I hope enough of them are young enough and hooked enough to make the programme viable for the next 50 years.

That's good news, as long as it doesn't lead the current production team to start throwing sensationalist SLs at it too often. It needs balance, not too cosy, not too melodramatic. That's not easy.

I bet that a lot of listeners who've left because they didn't like the Rob/Helen SL will gradually drift back once they think it's safe.

Letters in telegraph today quite interesting. Feeling is that the whole situation will drag on and on. They won't let Rob leave because there is still a lot of mileage to be had from this story line.
I do hope not, I want to know what Ian has said to Adam, after hearing what he did.

I still want to know what happened with the culvert. And where Stefan went. And I am speculating wildly now, if there is any connection to the problems with the spring at Grange Farm.

Stefan's story could be one of those slow-burners, with him turning up in years to come (possibly dead- eeeek!). It makes sense editorially to leave a few loose-ends trailing and then go back to them when there's little else happening.

Make the sleaze-bag suffer Ian

Me too! I am still not convinced that the paternity test was all it was cracked up to be either!

There's no pleasing William is there.
Calm down for goodness sake.

Urghhh Adam is such a sleaze; dump the oil-slick, Ian!

Oliver's lovely

Poor old Joe, and Eddie

Adam's excuses for cheating on Ian were insulting. Was that the best he could come up with?

Sorry, I can't do a link, but Nancy Banks-Smith has written about Helen's trial in The Guardian.

Me neither, I was hoping it would all come out that he had doctored the report and he was actually the baby's father and had been secretly paying all along.

This yes?

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-r...ut-now?0p19G=c

Thanks Enjoyed that.