Charles Collingwood is best known for playing Brian Aldridge in The Archers, a part he has inhabited for more than quarter of a century (he is also married to the actress who plays Shula, perhaps the most loathsome inhabitant of Ambridge, but we'll pass that over in decent silence). In The Archers, Brian is the long-suffering husband of foghorn-voiced Jennifer ('Daaahling!) and father to her (and in some cases his) ungrateful brood. With his robust commonsense views, Aldridge is a rare beacon of sanity in tree-hugging, gay's-the-word, multi-culty Ambridge - indeed without him The Archers would be all but unendurable. If he has a fault, it is the excessivly tender heart that has led him into a few scrapes along the way - not least when he unwisely took pity on a barking mad Irishwoman and fathered a boy with a name consisting entirely of vowels. Naturally, with the mother dead, Brian is doing the decent thing and raising the brat in the bosom of the family...Collingwood was educated at Sherborne, after which he took a double first in Suavety and Charm at the Academy of Smooth, and sailed into the world of showbiz. In 1981, he co-hosted a quiz show on Southern Television with Bernard Manning (that's true). Nowadays, he is a frequent, and always welcome, presence on many a radio chat show and panel game. Like any sane Englishman, Charles loves cricket. Favourite wine: Soave. Favourite dance: American Smooth. Favourite neckwear: Need you ask? Hail Collingwood/Aldridge - cravat hero!
