The Archers
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"The Archers; a memorable theme tune, followed by fifteen minutes of ambient farm noise and sighing."
—Sandi Toksvig,The News Quiz
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The Archers is a popular BBC radio Soap Opera, set in the fictional West Midlands county of Borsetshire. It follows the lives of the Archer family, and the other families living in the small, rural village of Ambridge.
It has been broadcast nationally since 1951 after starting its regional run in 1950, making it the longest running current soap opera in radio format and, since the cancelling of Guiding Light, the longest running soap in any format.
Tropes used in The Archers include:
- Barset Shire: Borsetshire
- Crossover: With Gardener's Question Time, of all things. Eric Robson and some of the panel appeared in The Archers, and on Easter Sunday 2011 several Archers characters asked questions on GQT. The odd presenter from other BBC series has turned up As Himself or herself to open the village fete or something as well.
- Edutainment Show: originated as an educational series about agriculture...
- Genre Shift:... but long since outgrew that
- Hey, It's That Guy!: Debbie Aldridge is Tamsin Grieg, also known as Fran and Caroline.
- Emma Grundy was originally played by Felicity Jones, aka Ethel Hallow #1 and Nikki Foy/Zoe Brogan
- Loads and Loads of Characters: Pretty much a given, considering how long the show has been going on.
- Long Runners: 60 years and counting
- Love Triangle: Ed, Will and Emma
- This particular subplot is so long and convoluted that the nice people at The BBC provided a cheat sheet. It is still ongoing, and
practicallya Long Runner in its own right - when editor Vanessa Whitburn told an interviewer in 2001 that it would be a major long-term Story Arc she wasn't kidding.- She repeated this claim about the repercussions of the 2nd January 2011's double-length Wham! Episode - only time will tell.
- This particular subplot is so long and convoluted that the nice people at The BBC provided a cheat sheet. It is still ongoing, and
- The Ghost: Sabrina & Richard Thwaite
- The Midlands: West Midlands
- Ratings Stunt: one of the very first examples - the death of a major character was broadcast to coincide with the launch of ITV in 1955)
- Nigel's death.
- Shown Their Work: even with the series' edutainment roots very much a thing of the past, great care is taken to ensure that it presents an accurate view of the intricacies of farming
- There is an urban legend that farmers have been known to write in and complain if they used the wrong animal sound effect...
- Spin-Off: Ambridge Extra, on Radio 4 Extra, explores storylines, characters and locations that don't get focused on in the main Archer's program. At the moment, it's only 2 episodes a week.
- Tangled Family Tree: On the website
- Who's Your Daddy?: Georgie Grundy