One of the stars of the long-running BBC radio drama The Archers has said that the cast are “angry” about the BBC’s decision to abandon plans for a new studio in Birmingham.
It was announced last week that the BBC have nixed plans for a radio drama theatre at the BBC’s new Midlands headquarters in Digbeth, as part of wider cost-cutting measures that intend to save the corporation £500m in spending.
Production staff for The Archers will still relocate to the new facility, but the Beeb are seeking a separate existing studio for the show to be recorded. While the BBC director general Matt Brittin has said they will attempt to find a location in the West Midlands, there remains a possibility that the cast will have to go further afield.
The Archers has been based in the West Midlands for 75 years, since its first episode debuted on BBC Radio 4.
Ben Norris, who plays Ben Archer on the programme, criticised the decision, describing it as “classic short-termism and doesn’t represent value for money for the licence fee payer”. He also claimed that the move would risk damaging the quality of the show and imposing an “extraordinary burden” on its crew.
“This isn’t us actors being averse to change,” he told The Guardian. “It’s very much us wanting to stand in solidarity with our colleagues in production, us wanting to ensure the continued highest quality of the programme for the listeners, the continued heritage of the show, its connection to Birmingham, and also for the BBC not to go back on many promises it made to the region.
“It’s a combination of all those things that has left us feeling as angry as we are.”
Having been informed of the move last week, the cast of the show met to discuss the change on Monday (12 October), according to Norris.
He stated that the show “is recorded in a very specific way that is unlike almost all other audio drama”, and that there exist “very few other studios that have those facilities, and none that are up to the same specifications as our current setup”.
“[The current studio setup] would need transporting, building and striking with any new space we travel to, placing an extraordinary burden on the technical team and incurring extra financial drain,” he continued.
“I also think it’s a totally false economy. I’ve been told that the additional cost of shipping those people to wherever we ended up would cancel out what it costs to build the new studio within five years.”
“We’re worried about the sustainability of this way of working,” he added. “We are worried about the relationship between cast and crew, but also their energy levels, their wellbeing … Maybe we’d get away with it for a bit, but we think at some point the show would suffer and the listeners would perceive that.”
Brittin took over as director general from the interim boss Rhodri Talfan Davies in May following the departure of previous director general Tim Davie in April.
Per BBC News, Brittin said that The Archers is “going strong and... going nowhere”, despite the BBC living under “financial constraints”.
“We're going to explore how we can best house The Archers where they need to be and at the moment, we have other studio space around the country which could accommodate them," he said.
"So what we've said is, we're not going to build a £1.5m bespoke studio for that production, which is something we might have afforded previously. But what we are going to do is make sure The Archers continues to exist here."
Actors’ union Equity has stated that it intends to “fight” the planned changes from the BBC, while West Midlands mayor Richard Parker said in a statement that The Archers was “a key part of our broadcasting heritage”.
“We have the talent and the facilities here. There is no good reason why we should lose a programme that has called Birmingham home for decades,” he said.
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