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Norman George Painting (23 April 1924 – 29 October 2009) was an English actor, broadcaster and writer. He played Phil Archer in the BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers from the pilot episodes aired on the BBC Midlands Home Service in summer 1950, after the series went national on the Light Programme on 1 January 1951, until his death in 2009, when he was the longest-serving member of the cast. His last episode, recorded two days before he died, was broadcast on 22 November 2009. The character lived on until Phil was "found dead" in his armchair in February 2010. According to Guinness World Records, Painting held the world record for an actor playing a continuous role, a total of 59 years, which has now been surpassed by co-actor Lesley Saweard and co-star Patricia Greene.
Painting had worked as a performer, interviewer, writer and producer for the BBC before he first appeared as Philip in The Archers in 1950. He became a script writer for the series in 1966, following in the footsteps of Edward J. Mason, Geoffrey Webb, David Turner and John Keir Cross. He wrote in his memoir of the programme, Forever Ambridge (named after Ambridge, the fictional West Midlands village in which the programme is set), that he believed that Geoffrey Webb, who had died some time before, was guiding his hand as he wrote. He wrote about 1,200 episodes under the pseudonym Bruno Milna. Artistic disagreements with a then editor, plus a general disillusionment with the BBC management, led him to retire from writing scripts in 1982 and to stick to just performing them.
The character of Phil Archer developed from the lusty young romantic lead of the early episodes, working on the neighbouring Fairbrother estate, into a father and grandfather, replacing Dan Archer as the patriarch of Brookfield Farm and a senior figure in the series. Perhaps his most famous moment occurred on 22 September 1955, when his wife, Grace Archer (née Fairbrother), was killed while trying to rescue a horse, Midnight, from a burning barn – the episode being transmitted on first day of ITV broadcasts. The character survived Painting by four months, dying peacefully in February 2010.
He remained a bachelor, and lived alone at Warmington in Warwickshire. His body was found in his home in October 2009, shortly after he had died from heart failure.Anita Singh, Norman Painting, star of The Archers, dies aged 85 The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 30 October 2009. His ashes were scattered at Painting's Plantation in Leamington Spa, with a memorial service at St Martin-in-the-Fields in May 2010.
He left his recordings, scripts, books, papers and letters to the University of Birmingham, and they are currently held at the Cadbury Research Library.
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