Three Hours of Delight
Created | Updated Mar 6, 2003
Sunday 2nd March had been circled in red on my calendar for quite some time.
I had been regularly tuning in to BBC7 ever since it first caught my ear and tempted me with trailers featuring snippets of classic comedy series, radio plays and - Marvin. But, where was Hitchhiker's? There was no sign of it until a few weeks ago when the proposed DNA night was announced - fittingly scheduled to take place just before THHGTTG celebrated the silver jubilee of its first airing.
So, having spent an afternoon serving - and later drinking - beer, I settled down behind my computer screen, logged on to h2g2 and tuned in to BBC7. The evening, narrated throughout by Geoffrey Perkins, the former Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy producer, opened with reminiscences about Douglas Adams. Subjects covered included Douglas' contributions to the fourth series of Monty Python, the notorious 'deadlines' problems and Mac computers.
Guest speakers included Stephen Fry, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Professor Richard Dawkins. My favourite quotes - well the ones I had time to write down anyway - included:
DNA was always the Master of personal hygiene in a crisis. I knew him to have taken six baths in one day when under pressure to complete a script.
DNA said, when casting me1 for the voice of the parrot in Starship Titanic that I'd always been playing parrots.
Douglas said that h2g2 has come home by moving to the BBC.
Yes, h2g2 was mentioned and the Digital Village and Starship Titanic and... well just about everything DNA related.
The next section of the programme was devoted to the Vogon poetry competition which BBC7 had been running for the past few weeks. The winning entries were read out by Peter Donaldson and The Post is pleased to say that they have permission to reproduce the winner in the Vogon Poetry section of this edition. Next came a fascinating section all about Last Chance to See and the amusing tale of Douglas and friends somewhat ill-fated expeditions.
This was followed by a special treat - the original recording of Black Cinderella Two Goes East, a pantomime. Characters included King Basil of Sexmania, Peter Cook as Prince Disgusting and John Cleese as the Fairy Godperson. This was quite a scoop as John Cleese had refused to work for the BBC since they had rejected the sketch about kangeroos in the 'Last Supper' skit of Monty Python. This programme was an absolute delight. Recorded live in front of an audience there were plenty of asides, lots of interaction with the audience and, I suspect, ad-libbing. It had definite undercurrents of Pythonesque humour and is well worth catching again if you get the chance.
The final half hour was Fit the First, the very first ever edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, broadcast by popular vote. This choice was extremely appropriate as, on March 8th, we can say:
It was 25 years ago today
Douglas Adams taught the land to play.
Don't forget that you can hear Hitchhikers every night at midnight GMT by following the links from The BBC7 Homepage
