New live show celebrating 75 years of BBC's The Archers is coming to Portsmouth

A new live show celebrating 75 years of the world’s longest-running radio drama, The Archers, is coming to Portsmouth next month.

Portsmouth Guildhall will host The Archers: Live at 75 on Sunday 21 June at 5pm as part of its brand-new live theatre show bringing the show out of the studio and onto the stage.

Broadcasting six times a week to five million listeners on BBC Radio 4, The Archers follows the everyday lives, loves, and dramas of residents of Ambridge, the fictional village deep in the heart of the English countryside.

A cornerstone of the British cultural landscape, the show has chronicled seven decades of significant social and cultural changes and events in Britain. It is one of the BBC’s most popular programmes and is currently the top on-demand show for listeners of all ages.

The Archers: Live at 75 will offer audiences a chance to experience Ambridge in a way that’s never been seen - or heard - before. Set within a playful reimagining of the “Ambridge Flower & Produce Show”, the evening combines behind-the-scenes insight, archive material, quizzes and a look at how the programme’s distinctive sound world is created in real time with specially written episodes acted out on stage.

Appearing in Portsmouth will be Charles Collingwood (who plays Brian Aldridge), Ryan Kelly (who plays Jazzer McCreary), Susie Riddell (who plays Tracy Horrobin) and Sunny Ormonde (who plays Lillian Bellamy), alongside the programme’s live sound effects specialist Vanessa Nuttall, with hosting from comedian Angela Barnes.

Mr Collingwood said: “My character Brian would never want to go on tour; he would find it a distraction from the ongoing problems at Home Farm. I, however, am longing to celebrate the Archers 75th Anniversary with enthusiastic vigour. May The Produce Show produce the goods in every way, a show full of fun, laughter and surprises! Roll up Roll up.”

Ms Barnes said: “I am not just an Archers superfan, I am obsessed with all things Ambridge. So to be asked to host The Archers: Live at 75 is like winning a prize at the Flower and Produce Show and being cast as the lead in a Lynda Snell production, all rolled into one. I can’t wait to hang out with all of my favourite characters and really immerse myself in Borsetshire life.”

Alison Hindell, Drama and Fiction Commissioner, BBC Radio 4, said: “The Archers is one of the BBC’s most-loved programmes and we are tremendously proud of it as it reaches its 75th year. We hope that the live show will give fans even more of what they love, joining in the celebrations with an extra slice of Ambridge life.”

To get tickets go to: www.portsmouthguildhall.org.uk/whats-on/event/the-archers-live-at-75/