With Great Pleasure at Christmas

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BBC Radio 4 LW

With Great Pleasure

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

Series bringing fresh insight into lives through literature, with guest presenters

Series bringing fresh insight into lives through literature, in which guest presenters pick readings from their favourite pieces of poetry and prose

BBC Radio 4 FM

With Great Pleasure: With Great Pleasure at Christmas

BBC Radio 4 - With Great Pleasure, With Great Pleasure at ChristmasSearch BBC

A festive celebration of The Archers, with readings, music and anecdotes from the cast.

A festive celebration to mark seventy years of The Archers, with readings, music and anecdotes from members of the cast.

Expect snow on the hills of Borsetshire and a hot toddy in the Bull in this festive celebration marking seventy years of The Archers.  Just as Ambridge hosts its own Christmas show, 'With Great Pleasure' brings you readings, music and anecdotes from the cast, one for each decade of existence of Radio 4's most popular drama.

Charles Collingwood (Brian Aldridge) kicks off with a comic poem on the hazards of being an actor on a long-running show.  Specially written for Charles and his wife Judy (Shula) by their old friend Sir Richard Stilgoe, it asks: will this be the episode in which my character meets a surprising end in order to bump up the ratings?  

The nations' beloved Gran and ace lemon-drizzle baker Jill Archer, or Patricia Greene in real life, reads from Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm.  She is followed by Ben Norris, who plays grandson Ben.  He reveals that Paddy is much more mischievous than Jill and says he has found particular joy in spending time with his on-air Gran after the loss of his own. 

Katie Redford (Lily Pargetter) remembers inviting all the neighbours round to see her Spice Girls 'show' as a child, without warning her mum, who was surprised when they all turned up.  Trevor Harrison (Eddie Grundy) remembers his much-loved radio dad, Joe, played by Edward Kelsey, and admits there's solidarity among the 'Grundy' actors and a tiny bit of rivalry with those who play Archers or Aldridges. 

Ryan Kelly (Jazzer) sings an acapella version of Auld Lang Syne by Robert Burns that'll make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and Susie Riddell (Tracy Horrobin) admits she wishes she was as fearless as the character she plays. 

Festive delight; hilarious, revealing and moving stories from behind the scenes in Ambridge.

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