Stephen Mangan

I struggled with Dirk Gently (Monday, BBC Four). It had nothing to do with Stephen Mangan's considerable comedic talents, still less with Darren Boyd who plays Macduff, the Dr Watson to Dirk's Holmes. It is more to do with my devotion to Douglas Adams, upon whose comic novel this series is based. Adams was never well served by TV or film adaptations of his work, even big budget ones such as the 2005 film of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. His books always worked much better as radio adaptations that could leave the listener's imagination to fill in the gaps (indeed the Radio 4 version of Hitchhiker's even managed to be better than the book).

Jeeves and Wooster was similarly hard to make work on screen. Though Fry and Laurie's version was as good as any TV adaptation could be, it tried to tell the story through dialogue alone, which merely drew attention to the silliness of the plots. In PG Wodehouse, as in Douglas Adams, 90 per cent of the pleasure is in the prose, the narration, the felicities of language.

Over the course of a novel, Adams could afford to be quite subtle about Dirk's big idea, that all things are fundamentally interconnected. A TV adaptation can't be, and, as it keeps labouring the point, you find yourself saying: "Yes, yes, I get it." Perhaps as the series develops they will tone down this side of things.

Finally, and this is an anoraky point, Mangan looks nothing like the Dirk of the novels. At Cambridge Dirk was "rounder than the average undergraduate and wore more hats", and in later life he becomes rounder still, and scruffier, and more chaotic. Mangan seems too neat, too thin, too orderly.

With regards to Dirk Gently, there's nothing wrong with the actors Stephen Mangan and Darren Boyd and some nice moments from Howard Overman's script. It's just that those qualities in the end spread a little too thinly over a nonsensical thriller plot.

It's supposed to be nonsensical, of course - Dirk's belief that "everything is interconnected" pretty much necessitating a chain of wildly improbable coincidences and consequences. But since anything can happen you don't very much care about anything that does, and Dirk's metaphysical musings about "Zen navigation" and the complexity of the world begin to get repetitious quite quickly. There were laughs, including a nice reveal when Mangan opened a Valentine's card in the middle of a complacent speech about his powers of attraction to find that the inscription inside read "I hate you, you're a pig". But they were far too widely spaced in a script that could have done with a lot more editing. Scorning someone's belief in astrology, Dirk asked him whether he really believed that planets "billions of light years" away could affect human destiny. Millions of miles would cover it, Dirk, and yes, you might justly point out that this scientific pedantry is irrelevant. But I probably wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't used the same phrase three times. Or if I'd been laughing enough to distract myself.

Since 2010's largely successful pilot episode based on Douglas Adams's comic detective novels, public appreciation of bromantic bickering between sociopathic north London super-sleuths and their prissy but redoubtable sidemen has risen considerably. A fluffy pig, some bogus horoscopes and an extramarital affair are the dots that Stephen Mangan's 'holistic' private eye - a shaggy-haired Sherlock with a belief in the interconnectedness of seemingly random coincidences - and grounded associate Darren Boyd must join to stop some global meltdown or other. It ditches the more ornate lunacy and the dark, portentous undercurrents of the Adams originals, but just enough of his charm, fun and spirit of closeted anarchy remains to appeal to fans as well as newcomers.

The thousands of creative decisions behind Dirk Gently

One man, Douglas Adams, wrote two and a half books about the adventures of holistic detective, Dirk Gently, and now over 100 people have collaborated to bring his character to the small screen for a new series which starts tonight.

The late Douglas Adams, upon whose work Dirk Gently is loosely based, once served as script editor during Doctor Who's original run, so the links are inherent anyway. But television really doesn't need another straggle-haired, loose-limbed, people-phobic, geek-chic eccentric solving crazy puzzles with assistance from a more diffident and human sidekick. It's probably only a matter of time before they revive Catweazle starring Ben Whishaw as a sexy nerd wizard in a pin-striped smock (I really shouldn't be giving them any ideas).

Stephen Mangan is fine as Gently, a conceited, bumbling, shabby detective who conducts "tangential investigations" based on his belief in the interconnectedness of all things. But his borderline charming performance isn't enough to rescue this micro-budgeted production from resembling a CBBC version of Sherlock.

The gritty cheapness of original BBC4 comedies such as The Thick Of It and Getting On actually works in their favour, as their dark, jittery essence practically demands flat lighting etc. But Dirk Gently, in trying to create a much lighter and more fantastical mood, is ill-served by its cheapo aesthetic.

Everything about it is far too slight: slightly likeable, slightly funny, slightly clever, but never enough to really succeed as either comedy or drama. And while the decision to downplay the science-fiction concepts found in the original books makes sense from a budgetary point of view, it also exacerbates the general feeling of pointlessness. It's just too generic and ordinary. And Douglas Adams was never generic and ordinary.

Video: Interview with Dirk Gently star Stephen Mangan

On the set of the BBC4 comedy drama, Mangan tells RT about Dirk's detective powers, breakfast habits and heroic hair...

Audio: Stephen Mangan on the return of Dirk Gently

Nikki Bedi talks to actor Stephen Mangan, who returns to our screens in the guise of Dirk Gently, Douglas Adams' self-styled 'holistic detective'.

Stephen Mangan on Douglas Adams

Stephen Mangan, star of BBC4's Dirk Gently, talks about his love affair with the work of the late author Douglas Adams...

Following a well-received pilot, Stephen Mangan returns as Douglas Adams's holistic detective. The first of three new adventures finds Gently and sidekick Macduff (Darren Boyd) probing the death of a computer whiz who thought the Pentagon was after him, and taking on a client convinced his horoscopes are coming true. At times it's rather dizzying as the script from series creator Howard Overman (Misfits) skedaddles along, but best just to admire the skill and mad energy of it all.

Compared to Whitechapel over on ITV1, the cases ­investigated by Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency make perfect logical sense.

But the first pilot episode of this BBC4 comedy screened back in 2010 got a mixed reception.

People who hadn't read Douglas Adams' original novels tended to like it more than devotees.

They were peeved that Dirk Gently wasn't played by a pudgy man wearing a red hat, a green striped tie and thick metal ­specs, but by Stephen Mangan.

Fans also objected to the way Howard Overman's script left out so much of the book's detail - which is a bit like complaining that you can't fit the entire British Olympic Squad on a push-bike.

Recommissioned for three episodes (they're nothing if not bold at BBC4!) Mangan returns along with Darren Boyd as his much put-upon partner Macduff.

It's a name that's perfectly suited to being chewed over and spat out with scorn as Gently does here.

Tonight Dirk must discover the connection between a man who thinks the Pentagon wants to kill him and another man who thinks his horoscopes are coming true.

According to Dirk's holistic view, these two seemingly unconnected cases must be linked.

And fans of Adams' novels will be pleased to see Dirk's theory of "Zen Navigation" comes straight from his book, The Long Dark Tea Time Of The Soul.

Basically, if you have no idea where you're headed, just find a car that looks like it knows where it's going and follow that.