The Archers Rich (piano) and Norman Parker (percussion). Robert Robinson once compared the tune to "the genteel abandon of a lifelong teetotaller who has suddenly taken to drink". On April Fool's Day 2004 both "The Independent" and "The Today Programme" claimed that BBC executives had commissioned composer Brian Eno to record an electronic version of "Barwick Green" as a replacement for the current theme, while comedian Billy Connolly included in his act the joke that the theme was so typically British that it should be the national anthem of the United Kingdom. In 2009, comedian Rainer Hersch conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra in
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series) to 'Robots taking part in a comedy show'" and another in Sierra Leone thought that "as a source of information it is misleading". One listener complained to the "Radio Times" that "In just about 50 years of radio and latterly TV listening and watching, this strikes me as the most fatuous, inane, childish, pointless, codswallopping drivel...It is not even remotely funny". BBC Radio 3's "Critics Forum" thought the show had "the sort of effect that a "Monty Python" programme actually has, of making everything that appears immediately after it on radio or television or whatever, seem absolutely ludicrous". By the