The Bowmans The Bowmans "The Bowmans" is an episode of the BBC television situation comedy programme "Hancock", the final BBC series featuring Tony Hancock, first broadcast on 2 June 1961. It was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The title is a retronym; the episodes were not originally identified separately. Hancock plays an actor in a fictional radio serial called "The Bowmans", a parody of the real BBC radio programme "The Archers". The theme tune to "The Bowmans" is a close variation by series composer Wally Stott of the real "Archers" theme tune "Barwick Green". Hancock plays Joshua Merriweather, a character
The Archers a performance of the theme, live from the Royal Festival Hall to a listening BBC Radio 3 audience in an attempt to confuse them. He then went on to show how similar it is to "Montagues and Capulets" - "Dance of the Knights" - from "Romeo and Juliet" by Sergei Prokofiev, claiming that this was a result of Russian spies going through the BBC's rubbish bins looking for the scripts. At times, a cliffhanger involving the death of a major character or a disaster was marked by the traditional closing theme being replaced by the final dramatic section of "Barwick