The Archers is a British radio soap opera currently broadcast on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now promoted as "a contemporary drama in a rural setting". Having aired over 20,000 episodes, it is the world's longest-running present-day drama by number of episodes.
Norman George Painting was an English actor, broadcaster and writer. He played Phil Archer in the BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers from the pilot episodes aired on the BBC Midlands Home Service in summer 1950, after the series went national on the Light Programme on 1 January 1951, until his death in 2009, when he was the longest-serving member of the cast. His last episode, recorded two days before he died, was broadcast on 22 November 2009. The character lived on until Phil was "found dead" in his armchair in February 2010. According to Guinness World Records, Painting held the world record for an actor playing a continuous role, a total of 59 years, which has now been surpassed by co-actor Lesley Saweard and co-star Patricia Greene.
Borsetshire is a fictional county in the BBC Radio 4 series The Archers. Its county town is the equally fictional Borchester. The county is supposedly set between Worcestershire and Warwickshire, but is also intended as a generic West Midlands rural county. Its name also echoes Anthony Trollope's fictional Barsetshire and the real Dorsetshire.
Borchester is a fictional town in the BBC Radio 4 radio series The Archers. It is the county town of the fictional county of Borsetshire. According to series tradition it is located 6 miles north-east of Ambridge in the Am Vale and is a historic market and wool town. These typically English country-town features are complemented by more modern additions, such as Underwoods, Jaxx bar, which was previously a café both managed by Kenton Archer, and Ambridge Organics, the shop run by Helen Archer, who also makes the Borsetshire Blue cheese sold in Underwoods.
David Troughton is an English actor. He is known for his Shakespearean roles on the British stage and for his many roles on British television, including Dr Bob Buzzard in A Very Peculiar Practice and Ricky Hanson in New Tricks.
Dick Barton – Special Agent is a radio thriller serial that was broadcast in the BBC Light Programme between 7 October 1946 and 30 March 1951. Produced and directed by Raymond Raikes, Neil Tuson, and Charles Lefaux, it was aired in 15-minute episodes at 6.45 each weekday evening. From 11 January 1947 an additional "omnibus" edition repeated all of the week's programmes each Saturday morning between 11.00 and 12.00. In all, 711 episodes were produced and the serial achieved a peak audience of 20 million. Its end was marked by a leading article in The Times.
Charles Henry Collingwood is a Canadian-born British actor.
Sally Anne Wainwright is an English television writer, producer, and director. She is known for her dramas, which are often set in her native West Yorkshire, and feature "strong female characters". Wainwright has been praised for the quality of her dialogue.
Philip Walter Archer is a fictional character from the British BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers, played by Norman Painting. He made his first appearance on 29 May 1950, the show's pilot episode. The character later became the longest serving male character in the series. His longevity gave him something of the status of a 'patriarch' in Ambridge.
Vanessa Victoria Whitburn is a British radio producer, and a former editor of The Archers.
Sean Michael O'Connor is an English producer, writer, and director working in theatre, film, television and radio. He was the editor of the long-running BBC radio drama, The Archers from 2013 to 2016 and executive producer of EastEnders from 2016 to 2017.
Ambridge Extra is an extension of the long-running radio drama The Archers. It began broadcasting sporadically on the digital radio station BBC Radio 4 Extra from 5 April 2011. The programme ran for five series, before it was "rested".
Judy Bennett is a British voice actress whose career in radio began with the long-running soap opera The Archers, in which she played the role of Shula Hebden-Lloyd from 1971 to 2022, reappearing in 2023 after a break. She played Shula's twin brother Kenton and younger sister Elizabeth before assuming the role of Shula herself.
Emerald O'Hanrahan is an English actress best known for playing Emma Grundy in The Archers on BBC Radio 4.
John Roland Clifford Yorke is a British television producer and script editor, who was head of Channel 4 Drama 2003–2005, controller of BBC drama production 2006–2012 and MD of Company Pictures (2013–2015).
Christine Barford is a fictional character from the British BBC Radio 4 soap opera, The Archers. The character was introduced as the sister of Phil Archer in 1951, and the daughter of Dan and Doris Archer. The character was a skilled horsewoman, who for many years ran the Ambridge riding stables. British actress Lesley Saweard played the role from 1953 to 2019, with a six-year break in the mid-1960s, making her one of the longest-serving soap opera actors in the world. Saweard was last heard in the episode broadcast 30 December 2019.
Shula Hebden Lloyd is a fictional character from the British BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers. The character was introduced as the eldest daughter of Phil Archer and Jill Archer in 1958. Shula has been portrayed by Liverpudlian actress Judy Bennett since 1971. Bennett played the role for over 50 years, making her one of the longest-serving soap opera actors in the world. After Bennett announced her departure from the show in September 2022, Shula's exit scenes aired on 30 September. She later made brief returns in December 2023 and February 2024.
Jennifer Aldridge is a fictional character from the BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers. The character first appeared in 1951. The role was played by a variety of actresses, until Angela Piper joined the cast in June 1963. Piper was on the show for almost 60 years and was the second-longest-running cast member, until Jennifer died during the episode broadcast on 22 January 2023. The Telegraph had called Piper's voice "somehow sharp and yielding at the same time, like a scone topped with homemade jam."
Elizabeth Gwladys Davies was a British radio drama producer and director, and a prolific dramatist who contributed scripts to radio, primarily at the BBC, for over fifty years. Her work appeared on the BBC Home Service and radio For the Forces during the Second World War and continued to appear on BBC Radio 4 well into the 1990s. As a director of drama she produced the long-running radio soap opera Mrs Dale's Diary and worked closely with writers ranging from the Trinidadian author Samuel Selvon to the historian Lady Antonia Fraser, while directing hundreds of plays and serials for the radio. She died at the age of 100.
