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 Grumbleweeds Radio Show build on the image the group had built up through radio, the television shows were geared toward a more family audience than the live stage show. "The Grumbleweeds Radio Show" was produced by Johnny Hamp of "The Comedians" fame, who retained the fast-moving sketch format and upped it a little, with thirty or more sketches per half-hour episode, interspersed with impressions and a selection of regular characters from the radio series. Comedy script writer/editor Barry Faulkner, who had worked on most of the BBC and ITV comedy sketch shows of the time, was brought in and contributions accepted for appraisal