"Barwick Green" is the theme music

Theme music

Theme music is a piece that is often written specifically for a radio program, television program, video game or movie, and usually played during the title sequence and/or end credits...

 to the long-running BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 soap opera

Soap opera

A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

 The Archers

The Archers

The Archers is a long-running British soap opera broadcast on the BBC's main spoken-word channel, Radio 4. It was originally billed as "an everyday story of country folk", but is now described on its Radio 4 web site as "contemporary drama in a rural setting"...

. It is a "maypole dance

Maypole dance

Maypole dancing is a form of folk dance from western Europe, especially England, Basque Country, Sweden, Galicia, Portugal and Germany,- History :...

" from the suite My Native Heath, written in 1924 by the Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

 composer Arthur Wood

Arthur Wood (composer)

Arthur Wood was an English composer and conductor, particularly famous for "Barwick Green", the signature theme for the BBC Radio 4 series The Archers.-Life:...

, and named after Barwick-in-Elmet

Barwick-in-Elmet

Barwick-in-Elmet is a village east of the centre of but still part of the City of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is one of only three places in the area to be explicitly associated with the ancient Celtic kingdom of Elmet, the others being Scholes-in-Elmet and Sherburn-in-Elmet. It is part of...

.

The recording used between 1950 and the 1990s was played by Sidney Torch

Sidney Torch

Sidney Torch MBE was a British pianist, cinema organist, conductor, orchestral arranger and a composer of light music.Born Sidney Torchinsky of a Ukrainian Father and an Estonian Mother in London, Torch learned the rudiments of music very quickly from his father, an orchestral trombonist...

 and his orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

. Sidney Torch recorded a commercial release of "Barwick Green" in the 1950s, but it was not used on The Archers itself.

The Sunday omnibus

Omnibus (broadcast)

An omnibus is a compilation of daily television or radio episodes that is re-broadcast during the following weekend. The term has been most frequently used in the United Kingdom, though it has also been used in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa...

 broadcast of The Archers starts with a more rustic

Rustic

Rustic can refer to:*rural*pastoralIn zoology:* Rustic moths, various noctuid moths of subfamilies Hadeninae and Noctuinae, including** The Rustic, * The Rustic , a brush-footed butterfly...

, accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

-arranged rendition by The Yetties

The Yetties

The Yetties are an English folk music group and take their name from the Dorset village of Yetminster which was their childhood home. In 2007 The Yetties celebrated 40 years as a professional folk band....

. Whilst the theme for BBC Radio 4 Extra's The Archers spinoff, Ambridge Extra

Ambridge Extra

Ambridge Extra is an extension of the long-running radio drama The Archers. It began in 2011 and will run for at least two series. The show features a number of new or previously silent and minor characters from the main series, in particular focussing on younger characters...

, is a version arranged by Bellowhead

Bellowhead

Bellowhead are an English contemporary folk band originally brought together by John Spiers and Jon Boden. The eleven-piece band plays traditional dance tunes, folk songs and shanties, with arrangements drawing inspiration from a wide diversity of musical styles and influences...

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