h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It was like the longest Jackanory ever, it seemed to just go on and on for what felt like years (Much like the Mysterious Cities of Gold would in later years), but Tony Robinson telling the tales of the voyages of Odysseus was one of my favourite program as a kid, there were no special effects, no pictures, nothing! Just a bloke standing in surroundings which seemed appropriate to the part of the story he was telling, gleefully and enthusiastically telling what he obviously thought of as one of the greatest stories in history, embellishing every detail. Squeezing in as much of the gruesome detail as he could on a kids program. The only other example of someone instilling so much passion into the telling of a tale on the telley was Rik Mayall reading George's Marvellous Medicine. It was glorious or at least that's the way I remember it, like most programs from my youth they probably wouldn't stand up to viewing these days. Anyway it got me indirectly into a lot of other stuff and for that I'm grateful. Thank you Tony, Baldrick was pretty good but this was your finest

Tony Robinson did a great version of some biblical stories too - on a program called, um, er... "Tales of Blood and Fire" or something?

Sometimes gruesome, sometimes comical, but always brilliant.

Similarly, Johnathan Edwards did a couple of sprograms about Jason & the Argonauts and the Odyssey. Excellent stuff.

My favourite myth is probably Theseus & the Minotaur though. I told it to my sons a while ago with suitable embellishments. (I had Theseus asking Andromeda what he was supposed to do with a ball of string: "What do you exect me to do? Knit it to death?")

I agree, the Tony Robinson telling of the Odysseus myth was great. It had quite an effect on me at the time. It was written by Tony Robinson and Richard Curtis (later of Blackadder and 4 weddings fame). It was split into two book, "Odysseus: greatest hero of them all" telling the run up to and the events described in the Iliad, and "Odysseus: journey into hell" telling the story of the Odyssey.

I recently found the second book on amazon. It's long out of print, but still available, if you're prepared to look. I remember getting the book out of the school library after watching it on tele. Top nostalgia.

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