British Comedy Guide
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Image shows from L to R: Detective Sergeant Gilks (Jim Carter), Dirk Gently (Harry Enfield). Copyright: Above The Title Productions / BBC
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

  • Radio sitcom
  • BBC Radio 4
  • 2007 - 2008
  • 12 episodes (2 series)

Sci-fi radio detective comedy series created by Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Also features Harry Enfield, Billy Boyd, Jim Carter, Olivia Colman, Robert Duncan and more.

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Episode menu

The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul, Episode 3

Dirk buys a nifty gadget and Kate visits an iffy clinic.

Further details

While his cleaning lady languishes unheard in a locked fridge on a rubbish skip outside his front door, Dirk Gently, nursing a bloodied and broken nose, is vainly attempting to connect random clues.

Simon and Cynthia Draycott, a sinister couple in the advertising business are somehow connected with the murder of his client, the record executive Geoff Ansty. While Dirk is on the right track - a track which is helpfully flagged by the purchase of an I-Ching pocket calculator and a chance encounter with a certain Nurse Sally Mills - he does not realise is that the American journalist Kate Schechter is also on their trail - or rather, on the trail of one of their victims, Thor, the God Of Thunder.

While Thor is superglued to a warehouse floor by the evil goblin Toe Rag, with Dirk's ex-secretary Miss Pearce in attendance in the form of a vending machine under a particularly strange curse, Kate visits the Clinic where Thor's destitute father Odin plans to end his days. Odin has traded his immortal soul for a clean bed and 24-hour nursing care under the motherly eye of Sister Bailey at the Woodshead, a rather suspicious and eerie institution run by the peculiar Dr Standish and owned by the Draycotts.

Just as it looks like Kate and Dirk will never join forces, Dirk's Holistic Navigation system - which consists of following cars that look as if they know where they are going - brings both Holistic Detective and lovelorn American Journalist together. Meanwhile Thor goes for help looking for the one person in the past few days who has been kind to him - a Miss Kate Schechter, who gave him her address shortly before Heathrow Terminal 5 developed a very brief but sudden micro-climate of the thunderous variety.

Broadcast details

Date
Thursday 16th October 2008
Time
11pm
Channel
BBC Radio 4
Length
30 minutes

Cast & crew

Cast
Harry Enfield Dirk Gently
Olivia Colman Janice Pearce
Peter Davison Simon Draycott
Jan Ravens Cynthia Draycott
Laurel Lefkow Kate Schechter
Stephen Moore Odin
Rupert Degas Thor
Michael Roberts Toe Rag
Guest cast
Sally Grace Sister Bailey
Morwenna Banks Nurse Sally Mills
John Fortune Dr Standish
Michael Fenton Stevens Nobby
Writing team
Douglas Adams Writer
Dirk Maggs Writer (Adapted By)
Production team
Dirk Maggs Director
Dirk Maggs Producer
Philip Pope Composer

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