, who plays stern matriarch Jill Archer on long-running radio soap opera , has shared how much she earns for the Radio 4 role. The voice actor has been the voice behind the woman running a tight ship in the Archer household for 60 years now, but that number is not reflected by her wage. In a previous interview with , she revealed that she only made £16,000 for the role in 2017. However, she is matter of fact about the relatively small sum, telling the paper: “That’s what we get. We don’t talk money much, we talk content.”
While Patricia seems to be at peace with her salary, she has been shocked to discover how much certain high profile radio stars make. After hearing Chris Evans was paid over £2million annually while he worked at the , she gasped: “It’s obscene. You don’t earn that kind of money sitting at a microphone, do you? You can’t, it’s just ridiculous.”
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Patricia Greene has revealed how much she is paid as a voice actor on BBC Radio 4 (Image: Getty)
Patricia isn’t concerned about making more money for herself, but admitted that it would be nice to see some of that sum going towards The Archers’ budget.
She explained: “It always makes me laugh that we can only now have six characters per episode because of money, sometimes five, sometimes seven [according to the , the quota is actually 39 voices per week]. And [sometimes] we have to do [sound effects] that we would have gone and got off a gramophone record or tape but now we have to do it ourselves, it’s ridiculous.”
The Archers follows the lives of farmers, vets, pub owners and local vicars living in the fictional English town of Ambridge. The titular Archers are one of the key families in the village.
Episodes of the show are only 13 minutes long, which makes it easy to keep up with, and it airs every day of the week except for Saturdays.
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The BBC star makes far less than some radio presenters working for the broadcaster (Image: Getty)
When Patricia was asked if she can feel herself turning into her character after so many years voicing Jill, she protested that it is actually the other way around – she has infused Jill with some of her own personality.
The star shared: “There were originally two writers, Jeffrey Webb, who invented Jill – he liked the sweet, innocent type, the farming girl; and Ted Mason, who liked sophisticated girls sitting on cocktail stools. After a while, I went to the director and said, what am I to do with this Jekyll and Hyde character? And he said, play against the lines… So, what I’ve done is imbue Jill with a little Paddy.”
Initially Patricia was disappointed to land a full time role in the radio play, as she actually had ambitions of pursuing a career in theatre. However, when the show’s creator Godfrey Baseley revealed that he intended for Jill to become a new love interest for widowed Phil Archer, she acquiesced.
Now she is glad she did, as her radio career lasted far longer than she would have physically been able to perform on stage in her old age.