Norman Painting Norman Painting Norman George Painting (23 April 1924 – 29 October 2009) was an English actor, broadcaster and writer. He played Phil Archer in the BBC Radio 4 soap opera "The Archers" from the pilot episodes aired on the BBC Midlands Home Service in summer 1950, after the series went national on the Light Programme on 1 January 1951, until his death in 2009, when he was the longest-serving member of the cast. His last episode, recorded two days before he died, was broadcast on 22 November 2009. The character lived on until Phil was "found dead" in his armchair
Angus Imrie Mortimer's "A Voyage Round My Father". In 2014, Imrie joined the cast of the long-running BBC Radio 4 series "The Archers", based on a rural farming community in the mythical village of Ambridge, to take the role of Josh Archer previously played by child actor Cian Cheesbrough, the teenage son of David and Ruth and one of the main members of the Archer family. In the same year, he played the part of cabin boy Pip in "The White Whale" at Leeds Dock, in which he sang "Amazing Grace" from the top of the set after having fallen into the