There’s much to recommend in Tim Stimpson’s theatrical love-letter to The Archers, born in Cirencester’s Barn ahead of the 75th anniversary of the world’s longest-running radio drama next year. At its best, like the hallowed “everyday story of country folk” itself, this madcap recap of the programme’s early days and its subsequent attempts to insinuate change over the decades, combines dollops of information with welcome comedy and insights into human behaviour.
Whenever the evening dwells on the specifics of the show’s genesis, complete with behind-the-scenes antics and on-air highlights, it’s a total delight. Yet when it cuts to its contemporary framing device – we’re watching the studio recording of a radio homage to The Archers, called Inventing Ambridge, and witness clashing actorly egos and crazed producer ambition between-takes – it loses momentum, even as the haywire mayhem ramps up.
‘Actors play fictional actors who, in turn, are playing bygone actors playing Archers characters – it’s too much’
Yes, Stimpson, a regular writer for The Archers, thereby satirically contrasts the self-involvement of today’s actors with the more self-effacing nature of the early players. And yes, the breaking in and out of character and, in effect, time-jumping (which necessitates swift role-switching and accent-shifting) boldly blurs fictional boundaries, animates the scene, and puts Joseph O’Malley’s impressive cast of seven through their paces. But in dodging plodding conventionality, Stimpson courts frisky overload. You’ve got actors playing fictional actors who, in turn, are playing bygone actors playing Archers characters; it’s too much.
The piece is on surest ground when depicting the initial brainwave of Godfrey Baseley (played by Kieran Brown), the Midlands-based BBC producer of agricultural programming, for a drama serial on the subject of farming. There’s a collective frisson when he first hails Arthur Wood’s Barwick Green as the right fit for the theme music (“It’s a pint of ale on a warm summer’s evening!”).
‘Haywire puts Joseph O’Malley’s impressive cast of seven through their paces’: The cast of Haywire at the Barn Theatre
It’s magic, again, when cast-members assemble round a mic and lip-sync to the actual debut 1951 episode, a spotlight shining on a radio-adjacent armchair to denote an enthralled nation. Power-battles as ratings soared; the pressure on the cast to keep “in character” in public; gripes over pay – all this grips. I also loved the DIY sounds achieved by a spot-effect artist (Geebs Marie Williams).
I wanted more, though, on how characters evolved and the writers worked. For all the hard-won ingenuity of the meta-theatrical frills, surely it’d be better to follow The Archers’ own trim example: the inclusion here of the shock death of Grace Archer in 1955 is a perfect reminder to any playwright that, to grab attention, it pays to kill your darlings.
Until Oct 11. Tickets: barntheatre.org.uk
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