From one classic Radio 4 comedy (ISIHAC) to another: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which returned to the radio this evening with its Tertiary Phase. Adapted from the third book in Douglas Adams’ quite ill-named trilogy, it reunites nearly all the original voice talent from the original recordings. Sadly Peter Jones - The Book - died about four years ago, so the voice of the book has been recorded by William Franklyn.
The capsule review: I liked it!
It took a little while to get used to William Franklyn as The Book, but with some clever editing and splicing together of the two voices, including merging them completely at some points, you begin to enjoy the new voice. There’s even some exposition from Ford explaining that something odd is happening to the book… “It’s being updated.”
The precis of how Wowbagger became the Infinitely Prolonged had me laughing out loud -
He had his immortality inadvertently thrust upon him by an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator: Fzzt. “Oh dear.” A liquid lunch: “Whoops.” And a couple of rubber bands: Pfffft. “Oooh.”
- As did Marvin’s encounter with the very floopy mattress, Zem; a scene that I always enjoyed in the book, and which thankfully entirely lived up to my expectations. “Hello Zem!”
I’d forgotten about the life-cycle of the ratchett screw-driver fruit, but as I was laughing at The Book’s explanation of it (and the mattresses) I did remember reading it.
It’s a while since I’ve read the last three books, so I can only half remember the plot. Apparently Douglas Adams left notes about what he had planned for the radio shows, so we expect continuity to take a back seat to a good gag. We can also look forward to Douglas’ voice showing up later in the series as Agrajag - Arthur’s repeated whipping boy.
The sound effects are just as I remembered, including the distinctive, beep-beep,chug-a-chug-derg noise the Guide makes as it starts up.
TiVo is recording them for me, so I automagically have 192kbit mp3s of the episodes as they’re broadcast. I’ve just listened to episode 1 twice in a row, and it’s making smile all over again.
This is the first incarnation of The Guide that I’ve been able to experience “live” as it were. The original series were broadcast either just before I was born, or in the few years after, the books around the same time. I was really too young to watch the TV show when it was first broadcast, although I do have a vivid memory of seeing a glimpse of the TV show one night, before my mum made me turn it off. Just that glimpse (it was the crew climbing into the transporter on Hotblack Desiato’s ship) was enough to make me spend my pocket money on the entire trilogy (all four books, as it was then). I’ve still got them somewhere, very tatty paperbacks - the edition where each quarter of the front cover lined up with the other three books to display a picture of a towel, babel fish, heart-of-gold ship, or… something else - I forget! Next year we get the movie - finally! - it having been in development hell for years.
Hitchhiker’s is back - and it’s not crap! Horrah!
No Phil this time, as he’s off somewhere hot and sunny for the week.
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