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When Ambridge Met Anneka

2015-09-24T16:17:37+00:00

Anneka Rice with Lynda Snell (1993)

The Village Hall had fallen into a state of disrepair until a rallying cry from Anneka Rice saved the day…

You can listen here to Anneka fondly recalling her visit, on her Radio 2 Breakfast Show

January 1993: overreacting to a worrying report from the Licencing Officer, doubling as Environmental Health, Christine banned everyone - including the Over 60s Tea Dance - from using the Village Hall.

With the Committee short of funds (and no bookings meant no income), Joe saw an earner in letting rooms out to displaced village hall groups, starting with the Over 60s who ended up meeting at Grange Farm. Here the rumours abounded over the cost of rectifying the village hall kitchen - and there was only £190 in the village hall account!

Lynda decided on an appeal to raise funds, and a lunch for the "Village Hall Committee". Kate came up with the suggestion of getting the village to do the Hall up themselves. With this in mind, Lynda unveiled her plan for the refurbishment under the banner "Challenge Lynda”.

With the use of flattery and acting like a "sweet talking steamroller", Lynda managed to get Sid Perks to sign up for the Refurbishment, as well as Eddie, and tried to rope Tony into it.

The rest of the refurbishment didn’t run smoothly. Mike and Neil fell out and downed tools; Eddie got fed up with Lynda and some non-fitting village hall kitchen units and Julia managed to insult all the workforce. Added to this, having persuaded a local Radio reporter to do a piece on the village hall, Lynda had to put up with Eddie offering to sing. It was the last straw when Bert maligned Lynda’s leadership skills. She threw in the towel, telling Robert that community spirit was “dead as a doornail”.

Finding a solution, Robert discovered that Anneka Rice would be in the area later in the week - on her own and without a film crew. She could be the figurehead that Lynda had failed to be thus far.

Anneka arrived in Ambridge on 26 March 1993 - a bit late. She persuaded everyone to declare a truce, and then rounded up the village to help. Neil turned up protesting that there wasn’t a rift between Mike and him, so Anneka dashed off in the buggy to Hollowtree. She phoned Eddie but he didn't believe it was her and refused to help until he actually saw her. Eddie was gobsmacked when Anneka turned up with Mike, who promptly set to work with Neil like they were old friends. By the time the kitchen was finished, Eddie regained his composure enough to ask for a signed photo…

Listen again to a few moments from Anneka Rice's visit to Ambridge...

When Anneka Rice came to Ambridge (1993)

Listen to Anneka's Saturday Breakfast show on BBC Radio 2.

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Amy Shindler (Brenda) has another life

2013-08-29T13:02:04+00:00

Amy Shindler (Brenda Tucker)

Amy Shindler (Brenda) is not just a talented actor. She has a strong track record in writing comedy scripts for television, too. And she’s just achieved the holy grail of aspiring comedy writers – a series of her own, with writing partner Beth Chalmers. Pat and Cabbage starts next week.

My Family

One of Amy’s first jobs as a writer was on three series of My Family, which was team-written in the American style. “I found it an amazing training ground”, she said. “It was a masterclass in learning how to structure a sitcom and put together several different stories for an episode. But it was also quite challenging, because you had to pitch your lines across a large table of up to 14 or 15 people.

“It’s different from the way we usually do it in this country, where you have a meeting with a producer and then you go off and create a script and then go through it with one person. Usually you’re not dealing with more than two people at a time.”

Up to that point Amy and Beth (whose beautifully modulated tones you may have heard on Quote Unquote) had mainly written sketches for other people’s shows. “We were still pretty junior at that point and in terms of narrative comedy we didn’t really know what we were doing. So I was really lucky as a young writer to get a chance to train like that. You work fast, you produce a show a week and there are lots of challenges like turning round an episode in seven to ten days, taking lots of notes, learning how to structure. Structure is a real beast and it kind of went in by osmosis, having to do it day after day.”

Amy and Beth subsequently worked on a series called Threesome for Comedy Central. And Amy herself recently wrote two episodes of Trollied, which is out at the moment on Sky.

Pat and Cabbage

The new series focusses on two women in their 60s. “They’ve come out of relationships for different reasons. They’re finding their feet and helping each other out and having a laugh. And it’s also about their families and what it means to be the age we all are.

“When I was at school, I was told to help OAPs across the road. But my father is now in his 60s and he’s on an exercise bike every day, so I think that the meaning of age has changed. People are living at home into their 30s and 40s sometimes, or moving back home after experiencing divorce and not being able to afford mortgages themselves.

“When we were writing it, we were thinking a lot about the baby boomer generation and those 60s kids who saw enormous social changes and who are now officially pensioners. If projected ages are correct and they’re going to live into their 90s or longer, then they’re not really in their twilight years. They’re somewhere else and we’ve got to change our thinking about where we all are and how we’re going to live.”

The title roles are played by Barbara Flynn and Cheri Lunghi. “Beth and I are keen to write good comic parts for women. Traditionally there haven’t been many. Women tend to be cast as foils or in various unflattering stereotypes, so we’ve got lots of female characters in this.

“But it’s also about their families. We cover things like is it fair to ask your parents for your inheritance while they’re still alive, if you can’t afford a mortgage and they’re having a comfortable retirement. But we’re trying to approach it through comedy – as best we can!”

Keri Davies is an Archers scriptwriter and web producer

Pat and Cabbage starts 5 September on ITV1
Learn more about Brenda and Amy in our Who’s Who
Beth Chalmers on IMDb

Whodunnit? An Archers writer, that's who

2013-01-30T16:55:06+00:00

Hugo Speer (DCI Stone)

This Friday's (1 Feb 2013) episode of BBC Radio 4's returning police drama Stone is written by Archers scriptwriter Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti.

Gurpreet says that Stone, a gritty cop show set in urban Manchester, is about as different from The Archers as you can get. It's the first time she has written in this genre but she was thrilled to be asked to contribute an episode and loved doing it

'It was just as much fun to write as The Archers, but in a completely different way', she said. 'Although one thing it had in common was a ready made cast of brilliant characters.'

Keri Davies is an Archers scriptwriter and web producer.

Learn more about Gurpreet's episode of Stone
Gurpreet talks about joining The Archers writing team
Picture shows Hugo Speer (DCI Stone)