Even regular listeners to Radio 4’s The Archers can balk at the laborious annual plotline of Lynda Snell’s amateur dramatic production in Ambridge. So the BBC’s licensing of a spin-off stage play to mark January’s 75th anniversary of the farming drama raised fears of a Snelly cavalcade of arch jokes for superfans.
In fact, Haywire – written by Tim Stimpson, author of almost 500 Archers scripts – is, across the length of eight radio episodes, a smart drama with a strong sense of broadcasting and social history.
