Tamsin Greig (Debbie) answers your questions:

When are you going to dump the poisonous Simon?
Julia Hunt

I'm not going to dump him. Garrick Hagon is a fine actor, and anyway that's up to Vanessa Whitburn. I just turn up and say the lines. I have a lovely life.

I loved your family scene with Brian trying to serve wine to everyone while Kate speculated on the source of Siobhan's baby. Was it as much fun acting the scene as it was listening to it?
Matt Gooner

That scene with the wine was a laugh to do, and I am indebted to Charles Collingwood (who plays Brian) for helping me to the correct timing and inflection for the end of episode line. I am nothing without him. Bless you Charles.

Why did an attractive young woman like Debbie decide to get married to the slimy, sickening Gerrard and don't you think Debbie's amazingly stupid at the moment to not even suspect that Simon is cheating on her with his students?
Jan, Surrey

She married him because he asked her, and he was her childhood sweetheart, and he was a mature good looking North American (ie a catch) and she had previously been smacked into Worcestershire by the landed gentry. Who wouldn't? Debbie is amazingly tired at the moment, harvest on her own, and no familial back-up. Who has their eyes open in those times? And what do you mean by cheating anyway?

Tell me, how can Debbie be so thick that she can't see that her oilslick of a husband much prefers schtupping (to use a Yiddish word) his nubile students than her? And won't their joint income suffer a major dip when he is booted out of his university for gross moral turpitude?
Tim Saville

Will you stop kvetching? And do you have proof of the schtupps? Don't forget, Debbie was a nubile student for Simon too. Why would Simon be booted out of the university? I thought personal one-on-one mentoring was the bedrock of university life?...

You seem to have quite a gift for comedy! any plans to do any more?
Alison Bettany

Did you hear the one about the radio actress who thought she was funny?... No, really, I'm very glad to do the comedy on screen. It's a wonderful blessing. Any more? I'm filming at the moment a re-make of the 1976 TV film 'Ready When You Are, Mr McGill' with Tom Courtenay and Sally Phillips (Smack The Pony) (sally, not tom). I don't know if I'm funny, but everyone else is hilarious, obviously.

I've been listening to The Archers for about 8 or 9 years now and I'm begging you please please please let me take you away from all this. All the men you go for treat you badly. Either beating you up or cheating on you... (I have you sussed Simon). You deserve so much better with that sexy chocolate voice of yours!!
John Gargrave

Dear John, how can I say this? Is this the first Dear John letter you've ever received? Are you sure you really want me to run away with you? My husband and two children would come too obviously, are you cool with that? But you are right to comment on Debbie's bad track record with the guys. But with a father like Roger T-M, how can she hope to have a solid male role model to draw on? And remember, things are still sweet with Simon. Very. Ok?

Well - what d'you think? Will Debbie & Simon have a baby? I've always imagined that we'll have to wait until Debbie finds out Simon's been having an affair with a 19 year-old student or something before she can discover she's pregnant unexpectedly... By the way, Debbie is one of my favourite characters and at the moment she never gets good storylines, so I'm really hoping she gets something meaty soon!
Ellie Kane

I think meat (as in story lines, not kids) is always on the horizon, so have hope Ellie. As for babies, what with Simon's legitimate extra curricular tutoring, and harvest, I don't think there'll be much hands-on opportunity for Gerrard fruition...

Debbie seems to have such a dreary life. If you could write the scripts for the next year, what would you have happen to her?
Martine Stead

Dreary? Dreary??? Have you ever been present at the birth of a lamb?! Ever driven a combine the size of a bungalow? Ever tranquilised a deer? Ever eaten Jenny's raspberry coulis? Ever had curry thrown over you by Eddie Grundy? I couldn't write those scripts. I might put her in prison, and see how radio copes with sound proof glass, though...

Was I going mad when I watched the first episode of Six Feet Under? Or did I see you in one of the invented advertisements?
Matthew Cooper

You were going mad. How do you feel now? Six feet under?

Do you ever get sick of Debbie being treated like a doormat by everyone? Brian doesn't help on the farm. David & Phil blamed her for not spraying the crops when she had wanted to and they ignored her advice. Simon is given free reign to play with his students. Why doesn't she put her foot down?
Bookworm

I think it's great that there is tension, emotional constraint, professional misconduct (them not hers naturally), mental anguish, marital torpor. How else would there be drama? But thank you for caring. Anyway, put her foot down too hard, and the nail would come out the other side, not a pretty radio sight.

Do you feel you are more like Debbie or Fran, the character you play in
Black Books [Channel 4 comedy series]?
Louise Jameson

I am like neither of them, I am Tamsin, I am not a number!!! I think they are both a little like me, and nothing like me. They are both pretty odd cookies when all's told, and obviously I am utterly ordinary, bland some would say. I am a blank canvass. Script writers come scrawl on me.

hi i think u r a brill actress. who do like to work with the most in the archers?
Cal Saxton

I love working with them all, they are all beautiful, talented, good looking and incredibly wealthy. No really, they're a great bunch of people. I do enjoy working with Charles Collingwood, described in the press once as "relentlessly anecdotal". We have a laugh and that's pretty good when you do a lot of work together.

Oooo!! I can't believe I'm asking you a question!! Tamsin, I am your greatest fan and have two questions for you... How do you say (in the diet coke advert) "And he's with another woman!" with such amazing tones? (yes I'm very strange!!)... and two... what do you do in the long gaps there seem to be when Debbie is not on The Archers?
Nick Taylor (16)

Bless your heart Nick. I don't know how I said that line in the ad. It was the middle of the night in a supermarket and it was the 17 millionth take. Perhaps catatonia? Or is that a country? And in The Archers gaps, I do other work, voice-overs, radio, tv, and go to the park with my children. It's not all roses and sheep poo you know.

Some of the most effective and harrowing acting I can remember in The Archers were the scenes immediately following your beating at the hands of Simon Pemberton. How did you set about preparing yourself for these? (I'm assuming you're not a disciple of the Method school of acting!)
HP Brio BAx P3/450

Thank you HP Brio. I loved doing that storyline - really gritty and stretching. I prepared by doing the scene with snot in my nose and 2 fingers in my mouth. It sounded like tears and a very fat lip. I think. The Method is all hogwash, to quote an eminent writer/director (not Stanislavski).