The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Douglas Adams's secret stash revealed

Details of the previously unseen Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy material to be exclusively performed at Chortles comedy book have been revealed.

My inspiration: Steve Cole on Douglas Adams

The Astrosaurs author explains how Douglas Adams' novels and Doctor Who scripts taught him the meaning of science fiction comedy.

42 things you need to know about H2G2

In preparation for a live transmission of Hitchhikers on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday 29th March here's 42 things any H2G2 listener has to know.

I am determined to believe that in the early summer of 1977, during a break from writing and recording the pilot episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams went to the cinema and saw Star Wars.

We now know, of course, that he was working on a story that would become a landmark in comedy, and in radio, and in publishing, and in video games. Yet when you listen to the opening episode again, rebroadcast for the first time in 10 years last Saturday on Radio 4 Extra, the sheer ambition of his irreverence still catches you in the kidneys. In response to what Star Wars began - the mythic, spectacular strand of sci-fi cinema - The Hitchhiker's Guide provides a messy, fun-poking alternative.

When Princess Leia watches her home planet being destroyed it is a tragedy that sends a great disturbance through the force. When the Earth gets vaporised at the beginning of Hitchhiker's, "I'm a bit upset about that" is Arthur Dent's reaction. In the cinema, when the Millennium Falcon makes the jump to hyperspace it is a blast that pins you to your seat. Ford Prefect, on the other hand, describes the experience as "unpleasantly like being drunk". "What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" Arthur Dent asks. The answer: "Ask a glass of water." Bravo.

Radio Times review

The comedy and science fiction worlds were robbed of a prodigious talent in 2001 when Douglas Adams died of a heart attack, aged just 49. His contributions to Doctor Who, literature, ecology and the internet are unique and impressive. But for me, his finest offering remains The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and specifically this radio version, first broadcast in 1978.

Where the Radio 4 series scored over subsequent outings on television and film was in its sublime cast (from Simon Jones's permanently bamboozled everyman, Arthur Dent, to Stephen Moore's lugubrious Marvin the Paranoid Android), and in allowing listeners to picture Adams's genuinely extraordinary ideas in their own minds.

In 1978 the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was already very much a known quantity, thanks to its sonic tailoring of the Time Lord's adventures on BBC One. Here, however, its engineers excelled themselves, weaving seductive and amusing soundscapes around the fantastical action.

Any comedy that begins with the end of the world is an instant attention-grabber, and Peter Jones's avuncular narration (as "The Book") is the perfect counterpoint to the ensuing craziness. Adams had a knack for wonderful character names, but stick with the series for Slartibartfast (one of veteran actor Richard Vernon's finest hours).

If you've never heard this before, I envy you. Hyperspace bypasses, Pangalactic Gargle Blasters and Shoe Event Horizons all jostle for attention in a planetary pot-pourri.

It's full of the kind of skewed, surreal humour and conceptual genius that would become Adams's calling card. And when Marvin laments, "Here I am, brain the size of a planet...", I often think of Adams's intellect in similar terms.

So long, Douglas, and thanks for all the fish.

Dirk Maggs: "Adams told me there was more to come"

The producer and director on doing justice to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, working with Neil Gaiman, and the debt they both owe to Douglas Adams.

Interview with Dirk Maggs about H2G2

An interview with Dirk Maggs producer of the third, fourth and fifth radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Grab your towel and celebrate Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams would have been 61 on Monday. Probably best known for his brilliant work, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Adams may be gone, but will never be forgotten.