What was Helen Titchener cooking when she stabbed her husband over dinner? What did law-abiding Jill Archer throw, and at whom, to get herself arrested? Where was Adam Macy conceived? And just why are the Grundys obsessed with ferrets?

This knowing excavation of Ambridge delights in the follies and everyday mischief of the inhabitants of England’s most famous village. House by house, via the Bull and the occasional barn, the narrator takes us behind closed doors and picks up on all sorts of whispers around money, births, deaths and marriages, and romance and sex (often in inappropriate places …)

In this canny, in-world exploration of Britain’s best-loved soap, we see how every relationship, each personal triumph and disaster, and all the hopes and dreams of a community over the years are folded into the personal stories of the characters we know so well today.