A tour of H2G2 has been announced by Simon Jones on Radio 3's Breakfast programme. It will feature the original cast (at least those still alive - so it is not yet known who will be the voice of the Book).
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to tour
Quote: Ian Wolf @ April 25 2011, 11:25 AM BSTA tour of H2G2 has been announced by Simon Jones on Radio 3's Breakfast programme. It will feature the original cast (at least those still alive - so it is not yet known who will be the voice of the Book).
There a quite a few still standing but no Peter Jones or Bill Franklin is a bit of a hole. Can't see Mr Fry having the time to go touring.
Which day was it Ian and roughly what time? I'd like to have a listen to the story but don't want to have to trawl through hours of BBC3 to find it. Thanks.
And the comedy guide illustrates the story with a photo of Simon Jones and the wrong Ford Prefect . . .
Quote: KLRiley @ April 25 2011, 5:32 PM BSTThere a quite a few still standing but no Peter Jones or Bill Franklin is a bit of a hole. Can't see Mr Fry having the time to go touring.
Which day was it Ian and roughly what time? I'd like to have a listen to the story but don't want to have to trawl through hours of BBC3 to find it. Thanks.
It is actually BBC Radio 3 in their Breakfast programme. His interview starts about 2 hours in. The news about H2G2 starts about 2 hours and 58 minutes in.
Quote: ScotiaNova @ April 25 2011, 5:36 PM BSTAnd the comedy guide illustrates the story with a photo of Simon Jones and the wrong Ford Prefect . . .
Blame Mark - besides, as is pointed out, we don't know if they are using the radio cast or the TV cast yet.
Thank you Ian
Hitchhiker's Guide stage shows have never been successful, the one that really bombed was at the Rainbow Theatre directed by Ken Campbell.
I'll probably go and see this, like some massive great bender. Can't be any worse than the FUCKING FILM. At least this'll have Simon Jones in it.
The film wasn't that bad. It was bound to disppoint original fans but it was enjoyable enough and I would like to have sex with Zooey Deschanel.
Heresy perhaps, but I preferred Mr Colfer's 6th book to many of Douglas Adams' originals! I always thought there was a HUGE drop in quality in books three to four. Nr 3 was (as you probably know) a rejected Dr who script foisted on the Hitch-Hiker characters, while the fourth meanders around a lot trying to be whimsical and never getting anywhere.
Quote: Michael Monkhouse @ April 26 2011, 11:06 AM BSTThe film wasn't that bad.
It was worse than bad.
Quote: Michael Monkhouse @ April 26 2011, 11:06 AM BSTThe film wasn't that bad. I always thought there was a HUGE drop in quality in books three to four.
This is very fair indeed.
The best HH was the first radio series and the first two books. Adams was a great ideas man and humourist but a pretty rubbish story teller.
The film was awful. I am one of the world's true Hitch Hiker's nuts. I have watched the film once. On DVD. And in the box it has stayed therafter.
The books are very variable. I'm still dithering over Colfer's version. I think it's very forced. A bit like he feed the ideas into a plot generator and that's what the computer spat out.
I can understand fans disliking the film, but there are worse ways to spend one-and-a-half-hours (cue 'Blackadder'-style afterthought, resist it). Remember I would still like to have sex with Zooey Deschanel. My girlfriend is Italian and never got the Hitch-hikers boom - watching the film from a completely unbiassed POV she enjoyed it too.
I always thought there was one really good bout of activity (the first radio series i.e. the TV series i.e. the first book plus the final third of the second book) followed by one good bout (the second radio series i.e. the first two-thirds of the second book). The third bout/book was a disappointment, basically public pressure and Pan's advance were so great Douglas Adams just dug out an old Dr Who script - I thought No point bringing the characters back, certainly not for someone else's story! And let's be honest, the fourth one really is hard to like. It's just meandering about whimsically until there's enough for a book and another wopping advance from Pan. Anyway I decided to try the fifth one after many years, and to my surprise I quite enjoyed it!
Colfer's I liked but I'll have to read it again before I can give a rounded judgement.
There you go, only my opinion(s).
I took a date who came to the film cold and the reaction was simply bewilderment. For the purist i.e. me it was just terrible. From my imdb review (I hardly ever write imdb reviews but I was so angry):
Stephen Fry is a very acceptable Book, and the suitably improbably monikered Zooey Deschanel makes a fetching Trillian. Mos Def however is a bland Ford: there is no sense of assumed cool masking near panic. And Sam Rockwell gets Zaphod all wrong, playing him a narcissistic airhead with a crazed alter ego, rather than as the epitome of manic intergalactic cool. The second head is real cop out as well.
Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast is another disappointment; on paper he must have seemed perfect, but it does not come off. He works so hard on being diffident and dithery, that he fails to nail down his punchlines.
The likable Martin Freeman is also miscast as Arthur: Arthur is not likable, he is English. Faced with the destruction of his planet and immensity of the cosmos, his response is petulance and peevishness. Freemen misses this: you never feel that his Arthur really NEEDS a cup of tea. He plays Arthur instead as a sensitive, modest, genuinely self-effacing sort of chap; Arthur is not self-effacing - any show of modesty is English understatement, and intended by him to be understood as such. One of the funniest lines in the book is when Zaphod congratulates Arthur on saving all their lives, "Oh, it was nothing", says Arthur. His chagrin when Zaphod takes him at his word is glorious. The exchange, needless, to say is missing from the film.
Doubtless the makeover of Arthur's character is deliberate; the film makers apparently feeling the need to give audiences a lead they could identify with, in an aspirational sort of way. Personally I always identified with the old Arthur, in a distinctly non-aspirational sort of way, and to be honest I kind of thought that that was the point. Satire is not supposed to be feelgood.
In similar vein, a gooey romance between Arthur and Trillian is thrown into the mix; worse it is implied that Zaphod is jealous, which is all wrong. An ego as monstrous as Zaphod should not be jealous of, of all people, Arthur. In the books Zaphod barely acknowledges Arthur as a sentient lifeform.
The film makers would doubtless defend themselves, arguing that the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy has continued to evolve through all its versions. This is true, but only up to a point; the changes have been structual, not wholesale reimaginings.
Other changes are less grating. John Malkovich makes a special effects heavy appearance as Zaphod's presidential rival, Humma Kavula; and there is a detour to the Kafkaesque planet Vogsphere. Accommodating these subplots does however mean that much original dialogue has to be sacrificed, whilst the storyline becomes even more rushed and lacking in proper resolution. The new material is not always as strong as the original, but it does at least have the virtue of being fresh; which is preferable to waiting for favourite lines, only to cringe as they are mangled.
Quote: Michael Monkhouse @ April 26 2011, 1:17 PM BSTRemember I would still like to have sex with Zooey Deschanel. My girlfriend is Italian and never got the Hitch-hikers boom - watching the film from a completely unbiassed POV she enjoyed it too.
She wouldn't have if she'd known you were fantasising about having sex with Zooey Deschanel all the way through it.
Quote: zooo @ April 26 2011, 3:02 PM BSTShe wouldn't have if she'd known you were fantasising about having sex with Zooey Deschanel all the way through it.
Although more understandable than fantasising about Martin Freeman, I suppose.
Well...