Nick Owen
BBC Midlands Lately
Chloe Hughes
BBC Information, West Midlands
BBC
Charles Collingwood has been taking part in Brian Aldridge for fifty years
“The previous day they gave me slightly birthday party, they gave me a replica of the primary episode I used to be in, six thousand and one thing. And the next day I might be recording [episode] 20,599 – so so much’s took place.”
In The Archers, the sector’s longest working radio cleaning soap opera which is recorded in Birmingham, Charles Collingwood is a part of the furnishings.
He has performed the hard-headed Brian Aldridge for fifty years, and desires to hold on for no less than slightly longer.
“Probably the most secrets and techniques I truthfully suppose, is it is quarter-hour each and every night time after which that massive omnibus on a Sunday,” he instructed the BBC’s Nick Owen.
“It is that point when individuals are getting supper or they are riding again from the station, they are having their first drink sooner than placing the youngsters to mattress.
“You’ll be able to devote to fifteen mins. Part an hour, 40 mins is an match.”
Angela Piper as Jennifer Aldridge and Charles Collingwood as Brian Aldridge in 2002
Set within the fictional Midlands village of Ambridge, it’s been recorded at quite a lot of places in Birmingham since 1950, together with making its house at The Mailbox, in 2004.
Mr Collingwood’s persona, Brian, a rich younger farmer, used to be offered to the Radio 4 drama in 1975.
‘Grew to become him right into a womaniser’
A 12 months later, he married Jennifer Archer, they usually have been in combination till her dying in January 2023.
“He used to be very thankfully married and rich and taken up Jennifer’s kids, and I feel they have been at risk of being written out of the programme, as a result of pretty as this is in actual lifestyles, there is now not a lot drama in that,” stated Mr Collingwood.
“After which they in a single day became him right into a womaniser and it quite modified my lifestyles.”
Again in actual lifestyles, Aldridge remembers how a brand new trainer of his daughter, Jane, had a passionate response in regards to the prospect of her in the study room.
“We met the workforce they usually met us and I feel I requested a query,” he remembered.
“It got here again to me later that her new shape trainer stormed into the workforce room announcing, ‘I am not instructing that lady, her father’s Brian Aldridge!’.
“Handiest a few month in the past, my grandson who is 9 – Jane’s son – got here again from college announcing: ‘My trainer stated, is it true that your grandpa is Brian in The Archers?’
“So there we’re, that is an indication of the way lengthy I have been taking part in this section,” he laughed.
