TV Cream

Radio 4: The Programmes

HitchHiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, The

The cast and crew of The HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy, seen here thumbing a lift out of the Week Ending studiosDOUGLAS ADAMS’ superior sci-fi send-up, as overenthusiastic towel-wielding blokes hunting for off-airs of Marvin on Studio B15 are wont to remind you at every given opportunity, started off very much down to earth in late night Radio 4 land. Snowballing cult following, critical reaction and cross-platform in-jokes inserted by Adams into Doctor Who scripts convinced the powers that be that something was happening here, and before long we had the books, the albums, the computer game, the stage show, the TV show, the graphic novels, the script books, Young Zaphod Plays It Safe, and (*spit*) the film, but there are legions of followers who will attest that you just can’t beat the originals. And they’re right too. Rights complications prevented the third, fourth and fifth books from heading radio-wards for many years, but recently Adams’ own preferred producer Dirk Maggs did the honours for well-recieved quirky all-star (Christian Slater, Joanna Lumley, Leslie Phillips et al – and, in a neat in-jokey gambit, TV Ford and TV Trillian David Dixon and Sandra Dickinson) adaptations with a ‘proper’ ending to boot (we’ll have none of that Eoin Colfer pointlessness around here, thanks). If you only know it from Martin Freeman sulking “now I’ll NEVER get that toy”, do yourself a favour and search out the original ‘phases’. Steer clear of Marvin’s singles, though.

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Paranoid Android

    July 21, 2009 at 12:15 am

    Nooo, don’t steer clear of Marvin’s singles, Marvin I Love You has that “Rah Band Clouds Across the Moon-style of sci-fi novelty singles that are actually really nice not that you’d admit it to someone you wanted to impress” sound to it.

    Gary Davies played it on the Day to Day Challenge once. OK, it was the choice of the contestant, but good on them both for selecting it.

    I always thought Marvin was more depressive than paranoid, though, it’s not as if anyone cared enough about him to have it in for him. But depressive doesn’t rhyme with android.

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