Fans of The Archers had been worrying about young Johnny’s hair loss, Lynda’s recovery after the Grey Gables explosion and Kirsty’s impending marriage to a birdwatching slave master when the coronavirus changed everything. Instead, 12 scripts and five weeks of storylines that were about to be written were summarily binned, the show’s editor, Jeremy Howe, has revealed. In the early days of the pandemic it felt less like recording in Ambridge and “more like fighting the Battle of the Alamo”, Howe said, as producers set about coming up with new ways of making the programme. Regular broadcasts of The Archers ended in early May to be replaced by three weeks of classics, also known as repeats, from the archives. Next week, the Radio 4 soap returns with life in Ambridge under lockdown. Writing in the Radio Times, Howe says: “We had to start from scratch, and we had to figure out a new way to make The Archers so that everything – absolutely everything – could be done remotely. It was probably the biggest challenge the programme has ever had to face.” Actors have had to create their own home studios with a microphone on a stand, linked to a computer, and as many duvets as they can find to cocoon themselves in. Before the lockdown, there was lots of communal cricket practice banter and chats in the pub, now restored to its proper name of the Bull rather than The B at Ambridge. The new Archers will reflect contemporary events with newly written stories. Howe said: “I told the team: keep it simple.” Howe said he had been humbled by how well and creatively The Archers’ production team, cast and writers had risen to the challenge of working during the lockdown. The Archers, the world’s longest-running soap opera, has been a fixture of British life since 1951. Originally “an everyday story of country folk” it now bills itself as a “contemporary drama in a rural setting”. The show returns properly on 25 May with stories which feature David and Josh Archer, Tracy Horrobin and police officer Harrison Burns. Howe said there would initially be far fewer characters because of the logistical complexity of what they were doing, but there were plans to bring other favourite characters into the spotlight. He quoted David Archer, who once said: “The sun will always rise and there will always be cows to be milked. Life always goes on.” Howe promised: “So it will be in The Archers.”