Iconic Archers soars from radio to stage

IT WAS once dismissed by BBC bosses as a funny little farming soap, yet The Archers went on to become the world's longest-running radio drama and a beloved fixture of British life.

- Julia Kuttner

As it approaches its 75th anniversary in January, the BBC Radio 4 series is being celebrated for its continuing role in highlighting the real-world struggles of Britain's food producers at a time when the future of farming has never felt more uncertain.

And its origins are being brought to the stage in a new comedy, Haywire - A Not-So-Everyday Story Of How The Archers Was Born, penned by one of the programme's writers, Tim Stimpson.

Opening tomorrow at the Barn Theatre in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, it offers a behind-the-scenes look at how a postwar experiment turned into a national institution.

The Archers was launched nationally on January 1, 1951, after a number of trial episodes were broadcast in the Midlands in 1950. It was the brainchild of Godfrey Baseley, an agricultural producer working out of BBC Birmingham.

At the time, farmers were still using horse-drawn ploughs and struggling to meet postwar food demands. Baseley believed radio could help but his colleagues in London weren't convinced.