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". With over 16,700 episodes, it is both the world's longest running radio soap and, since the cancellation of the American soap opera Guiding Light in September 2009, the world's longest running soap opera in any format.

The Archers is the most listened to Radio 4 non-news programme, with over five million listeners, and it holds the BBC Radio programme record for the number of times listened to over the Internet, with over one million listeners.

BBC Radio 4 Extra has also broadcast, in 2011, two series (26 episodes each) of a twice-weekly spin-off show Ambridge Extra. These were advertised as a trial, and it is not currently known if more will be made.

The Archers is set in the fictional village of Ambridge in the fictional county of Borsetshire, in the English Midlands. Borsetshire is situated between the (in reality contiguous) counties of Worcestershire and Warwickshire, south of Birmingham in the West Midlands, although it has been occasionally misinterpreted as Dorsetshire in South West England. Various villages claim to be the inspiration for Ambridge: Ambridge's public house, The Bull, is modelled on The Old Bull in Inkberrow, whereas Hanbury's St Mary the Virgin is often used as a stand-in for Ambridge's parish church, St Stephen's.

Ross Elliot Bagley (born December 5, 1988) is an American actor. Most popular as a child actor during the mid-1990s, he is best known for his role as Nicholas "Nicky" Banks the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air from 1994-1996.

Bagley also appeared with Fresh Prince star Will Smith in the 1996 movie Independence Day, and appeared as Buckwheat Thomas in the 1994 film The Little Rascals. Ross currently attends California State University, Northridge. He also has two younger sisters, Tiffany and Danielle Bagley currently living in Los Angeles, California.

Graham Seed (born 12 July 1950 in London) is an English actor.

He trained at RADA and is best known for his role playing Nigel Pargetter in the BBC radio series The Archers from 1983 until January 2011, although actor Nigel Carrington briefly played the role when Graham Seed took a break in the late 1980s. In addition to The Archers, Seed has appeared in the TV soap operas Brookside (1995-1997, as Dick Thornton), Coronation Street (1981, as a solicitor) and Crossroads (1985-1988, as Charlie Mycroft).

His roles include the adult Britannicus, son of the emperor Claudius in the BBC adaptation of Robert Graves, I, Claudius (1976), Harrop in William Boyd's Channel 4 Film Good and Bad at Games (1983) and Jorkins in the first episode "Et in Arcadia ego" of the ITV television adaptation of Brideshead Revisited (1981). He also appeared in Edward VII (1975), Bergerac (1981), C.A.B. (1986) and Wild Target (2010).

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (/ˈstɛfəniː dʒʌrməˈnɑːtə/ STE-fə-nee jurr-mə-NAH-tə; born March 28, 1986), known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to focus on her musical career. She began performing in the rock music scene of Manhattan's Lower East Side, and was signed with Streamline Records by the end of 2007. During her employment as a songwriter for the record company, her vocal abilities captured the attention of recording artist Akon, who signed her to his label Kon Live Distribution.

Lady Gaga came to prominence as a recording artist following the release of her debut album The Fame (2008), which was a critical and commercial success that topped charts around the world and included the international number-one singles "Just Dance" and "Poker Face". After embarking on the The Fame Ball Tour, she followed the album with The Fame Monster (2009), which spawned the worldwide hit singles "Bad Romance", "Telephone" and "Alejandro". The album's success allowed her to embark on the eighteen-month long Monster Ball Tour, which later became one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time. Her most recent album Born This Way (2011) topped the charts of most major markets and generated more international chart-topping singles, including "Born This Way", "Judas" and "The Edge of Glory". Besides her musical career, she involves herself with humanitarian causes and LGBT activism.