Ep. 488 - Charles Collingwood

My Time Capsule

Cast Off Productions

Comedy, Lee Mack, Interview, Comedy Interviews, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Rob Brydon, Caroline Quentin, Mike Fenton Stevens, David Mitchell, Michael Fenton Stevens, Arabella Weir, Stephen Fry, Ross Noble

4.8 • 817 Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Charles Collingwood is best known for playing Brian Aldridge in the BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers for the past 50 years, since March 1975. He is married to Judy Bennett who played Shula Hebden Lloyd in the series from 1971–2024. Charles started his career, having left RADA where he trained, in Children’s Television, starting with The Raven and the Cross (1974) and The Secret Garden. He was the score-keeper on Noel Edmonds' BBC One quiz show Telly Addicts, co-hosted the Southern Television quiz show Under Manning with comedian Bernard Manning and appears occasionally on BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute. He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 2003 .

Charles Collingwood is our guest in episode 488 of My Time Capsule and chats to Michael Fenton Stevens about the five things he'd like to put in a time capsule; four he’d like to preserve and one he’d like to bury and never have to think about again .

Follow My Time Capsule on Instagram: @mytimecapsulepodcast & Twitter/X & Facebook: @MyTCpod .

Follow Michael Fenton Stevens on Twitter/X: @fentonstevens & Instagram @mikefentonstevens .

Produced and edited by John Fenton-Stevens for Cast Off Productions .

Music by Pass The Peas Music .

Artwork by matthewboxall.com .

This podcast is proud to be associated with the charity Viva! Providing theatrical opportunities for hundreds of young people .

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to my time capsule. My name's Mike Fenton-Stevens, and my time capsule is, as it's always been, the podcast where people tell me five things from their life they wish they had in a
0:21.6	time capsule. Four things they cherish and one thing they'd like to bury and forget. My guest in
0:27.9	this episode is the actor Charles Collingwood. Charles is best known for playing the role of Brian
0:34.1	Aldridge in the long-running BBC Radio 4 drama The Archers,
0:38.7	a party's played since 1975, yes, 50 years ago.
0:44.2	He's married to Judy Bennett, who played Shula Hebden Lloyd in the series from 1971 to
0:49.8	2024. Charles started his career, having left Rada where he trained, in children's television,
0:56.8	starting with The Raven and the Cross in 1974 and the Secret Garden in 1975. He was the
1:03.5	scorekeeper on Noel Edmund's BBC One quiz show, Teleaddix. He co-hosted the Southern
1:09.2	Television Quiz Show Under Manning with comedian Bernard
1:12.5	Manning and appears occasionally on BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute, as well as guests appearing in
1:18.3	lots of dramas over the years. He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 2003, but undeniably
1:25.9	he is synonymous with Brian Aldridge.
1:28.9	The second part he's played to the Archers, as he explains in this episode, where Charles
1:33.7	tells me the five things from his rather lovely and very happy life, all 82 years of it, that
1:40.0	he'd put in a time capsule.
1:42.1	Here is the ever young and endlessly endlessly entertaining Charles Collingwood.
1:50.0	So apparently, well, according to the producer, he said, my God, Charles, just one.
1:55.9	He said, if we ever have the chance to get him on this is your life, we will.
2:00.7	And then I had this extraordinary affair
2:03.2	with chauvin hathaway and the archers which so the next thing i knew i had michael aspol at my elbow
2:10.9	with the red book so so it was killing really an amazing thing what an amazing night that must be
	...

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