FANS of The Archers, the world’s longest-running radio soap opera, will be beating a path to Cirencester’s adventurous Barn Theatre from 1st September to 1st October, when the intimate venue stages the world premiere of Haywire, a comedy that celebrates the “not-so-everyday story of how The Archers was born.”

Written by Tim Stimpson, and directed by Joseph O’Malley, this new play, which is licensed by the BBC, is being staged ahead of the 75th anniversary of The Archers on 1st January 2026. It uses the magic of radio drama to whisk the audience back to the halcyon days when people gathered around their wirelesses to listen and lose themselves in the live-broadcast trials and tribulations of a fictional farming family.

In a cold British December in 1950, producer Godfrey Baseley assembled a group of actors in a studio above a used car showroom in Birmingham, to record the first ever episode of The Archers. Now, the “everyday story of country folk” remains a proud staple of British popular culture and one of the BBC’s top on-demand programmes on BBC Sounds.

Haywire is described as a love letter to The Archers and the minds that created it – an exclusive invitation to experience the tears and laughter, the triumphs and calamities, that can happen both in front of and behind the mic.

The Archers writer Tim Stimpson says: “It’s been a long-standing ambition of mine to tell the extraordinary story of how a small team of writers, actors and producers recording above a used car showroom in the centre of post-war Birmingham created what is now the world’s longest running soap – sorry, ‘continuing drama’– the Barn is certainly more salubrious than the BBC studios were back then, but I feel the spirit of creativity and ambition is very much the same. I couldn’t be more delighted to be working with them. Plus, how could a play about The Archers be performed anywhere other than a theatre called the Barn?”

The Archers editor Jeremy Howe recalls going to the Barn with Tim Stimpson and tentatively pitching the idea of Haywire: “I am delighted for The Archers to be working with the Barn Theatre, one of the most dynamic and welcoming theatres in the land.”

Barn Theatre’s artistic director Iwan Lewis and executive director and producer Liam McMullan describe themselves as lifelong listeners to The Archers: “It’s thrilling to finally see with our eyes what we’ve listened to for decades. We’re hugely grateful to the BBC for trusting us with one of their most prized assets, and to Tim Stimpson and Jeremy Howe for their belief in the Barn.”