The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Radio Scripts by Douglas Adams
01/03/2006 . Source: Donna Jones 
pub: Pan/Macmillan. 364 page softcover. Price: £12.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-330-43510-8. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.panmacmillan.com
If you're like me, you read the books, saw the TV program and then heard recordings of the original radio series as an adult of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy'. You failed to buy any T-shirts because, well at that time, the Internet was about as accessible as Zaphod Beeblebrox's second head was to a turtleneck jumper. And you're still waiting to see the long awaited film thanks to the random nature of postal DVD rentals.
You may also have done these in a very different order, possibly rendering the Shoe Event Horizon into disarray for the purposes of this review, but it's all que sera, sera and the future my friend is dangling in the wind. Okay, so I am confused, mentally challenged and a bit baffled but am I entertained? Oh friends, countrymen, dogs, cats and small furry pets on squeaky exercise wheels, I most certainly am! So, here goes.
If you have read the books and then heard these fab 'Tertiary, Quandary' and 'Quintessential Phases' of the story on radio, it's all a bit bewildering because they don't really match up to the books. That apparently is totally intentional because, after all, the initial phase of Douglas Adams masterpiece was a play before it ever hit a bookshop shelf at a run. Actually, that would be quite a sight to see, a book hitting a bookshelf running! I mean would its legs be made of paper or kind of Smurf-like and squidgy? Anyway, moving along swiftly, Adams wasn't afraid of upsetting the fans of the books by completely messing around with the storyline. It had taken such a long time to get the follow-ons onto the wireless that Hitchhiker's whichever one you subscribed to was a cult phenomena already. In other words, a few pieces of playwright artistic license wouldn't really harm the fans. In fact, we loved it.
With that, the second radio series and the weird element that was the virtual reality ending, meant that anything was possible. Even a lurch back to the original books and back on the linear line of the high-wire acrobatic Adams. It all kind of went a bit Pete Tong though in the end because sadly we all lost a vital piece of the Guide: its real creator Douglas Adams. Would the radio plays carry on? Would we finally see them in the medium they were originally meant to be? Would Zaphod be coming back in reality or a virtual one? You bet your dressing gown it would!
With the help of Dirk Maggs and some of the original players in the First and Secondary Phases, they used some of the material that Douglas Adams had written and then filled in the blanks. Dirk Maggs maintains that he felt obliged to stick as closely to the books as he could, new invented scenes were a big no-no for Maggs and he says he tried to find clues in the previous Phases to help with the areas he could not fill with the books alone.
The footnotes in this book are extensive. They are the type of notes you really do need to have handy when you listen to the episodes (which are on audio CD) because as you listen there are points at which the insider information expands on the subtleties of the story.
Douglas Adams was a genius of his time, even when he was in the bath when he should have been writing, much to the disappointment of his editor! The Guide was always meant to be on the radio. It lives and breaths there and while I love the books just as much, I must admit that the radio dramas are where it's at!
Did I like this book of the scripts? Yes, yes and thrice yes! If you're a fan would you like this book? Ditto that last comment! And finally what did I think? Well the answer has to be 42, doesn't it?!
Incidentally the scripts are available for the First and Second Phase of The Guide published by Pan, too.
For anyone as stupidly incompetent to miss the schedule much like me and not hear these really excellent radio episodes, you can buy the whole lot from beginning to end on audio CD and there's a certain Internet shop that has the box set for 50% less retail! Am I dropping enough hints to you folks? Your girlfriend will love them! Or your hamster, whichever choice is agreeable to you at the time. I'm sure the Guide could help you out with that one!
Oh and one last thing...Don't Panic!
Donna Jones |
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