BBC - Radio 4 - Feedback Love quadrangle Things have been getting very steamy in the cowshed at Brookfield lately and Archers listeners who've written to Feedback talk of sensationalism and complain that some of the main characters seem to have had personality transplants. After David Archer's flirtation with his old flame Sophie, his wife Ruth has now embarked on secret trysts with the farm's cowman, Sam.

Listeners comment: “In the last few years there has been far too much of this stuff - melodramatic events which happen at twice the speed of real life and are often resolved at the same speed” and “The current story line in The Archers (Ruth and Sam) really is the worst they have dreamt up. It is completely out of character for both the programme and the characters and is really bringing the standard of this wonderful series down.” As The Archers builds up to its 15,000th episode on 7 November, Roger Bolton interviews Archers editor Vanessa Whitburn on this week’s Feedback.

What is particularly striking about this debate is how awareness of the storytelling format and engagement (to the extent of identification) with the narrative are combined. It is almost as if this was a mental equivalent of one of the many optical illusions such as Necker cube or Rubin vase. The recipient of narrative is constantly switching between two incompatible perspectives on the drama. One where the listener is transported to a different world (exemplified by expressions such as “Ruth has become …”) and awareness of the method by which this transportation is achieved (e.g. ‘storyline’, ‘out of character’). This is a much underestimated aspect of our cognition which is usually seen as something unconscious (which it of course mostly is) over which we have no power and at other times as something over which we have complete control.