LONDON — In the rural village of Ambridge on the British radio show “The Archers,” nothing much changes, and listeners like it that way.

They find comfort in the pace and traditions of country life, and in the villagers’ peccadilloes intertwined with conversations about badger culls, jam making, the campaign to save a local shop or a cow’s giving birth to triplets. Class differences, when they surface, are usually respected.

Yes, over the nearly seven decades that the BBC has broadcast the program, plots have included at least one same-sex marriage, the wedding of a Hindu woman to a vicar who rides a motorcycle and a child’s birth out of wedlock. And yes, some characters have turned out to be snobs, bigots, adulterers and even criminals. But the show’s old tagline — “an everyday story of country folk” — still seems appropriate.

Yet a trial that begins on Sunday’s episode has much of Britain buzzing and has divided listeners. The defendant, Helen Titchener, is charged with trying to kill her husband, Rob, after years of abuse.