Review of The Radio Series
Created | Updated Mar 6, 2003
As many people who have read, heard or watched the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy may know. Douglas Adams first had his idea for the wholly remarkable phenomenon that that is the Guide, lying - slightly drunk - in a field outside Innsbruck. An aptly modest beginning I think. At the time he was travelling with a book entitled the Hitch Hiker's Guide to Europe. And so the brief thought entered his mind: 'What would a Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy be like?'.
The Primary Phase
The first of the manifestations of the Guide was a radio series first broadcast in March, 1978. The series begins in a small village Cottington, somewhere on Earth. We find a certain Earthling called Arthur Dent lying inbetween a bulldozer and his house. Apparantly someone wants to build a bypass straight through his house. Though he doesn't know it, lying down is probably the most enjoyable thing he will do that day.
The first signs that this Thursday will turn out to be a little extraordinary is the appearance of his friend Ford Prefect. Ford Prefect is about to tell Arthur two very important things. The first is that he is not actually Ford Prefect, but a being from somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. The second slightly more serious fact is that the Earth will be demolished in twelve minutes to make way for a hyperspace bypass.
To all Hitchhiker's lovers this will be a familiar scenario as it occurs in thr radio series, the books and the tv series. The radio serie was new in various ways. Apart from being the first sci-fi comedy and being extremely good it broke ground technically as well. At the time all comedy series were live with an audience. With Hitchhiker's this was impossible. All the special effects and music needed made it impossible to record live. Take, for example, Marvin - a paranoid, manically depressed robot. The actor Stephen Moore had to be put in a cupboard and recorded separately to allow for the editing of the voice to make it robotic. The second technical speciality was that it was recorded in stereo which, though it is not much, does show when you are listening. At first the BBC were reluctant to accept it being recorded in stereo, their excuse being 'the audience won't know which side the punchline will come from' (the stereo breakthrough applied only to comedies).
While writing the last two 'fits' - as they called each episode - of the Primary Phase, Douglas Adams became busy as editor of the Doctor Who scripts. This extra work meant that he wrote the last two episodes with help from John Lloyd1. By the end of the Primary Phase the series had accquired a large following, which has continued to grow ever since. The BBC had also been persuaded that a sci-fi comedy did work, in fact it worked incredibly well.
The Secondary Phase
The second series of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy started with a dilemma. At the end of the first series Arthur and Ford had been stranded on pre-historic Earth, and Zaphod - Ford's semi-cousin - and Trillian - the only other survivor from the demolition of Earth - had been apparantly eaten by hyper-evolutionary beings called Hagguenenons. So, Douglas Adams' problem was that all his main characters were stuck. Not surprising really as it was supposed to be the end of the story.
Fortunately, Douglas Adams solved the problem. Well, at least for three of them as Trillian never appears again. Zaphod manages to survive by getting eaten by a Hagguenenon that evolves into an escape capsule and so escapes. Meanwhile, Ford and Arthur have to wait until Zaphod comes through time to rescue them. A pretty clever beginning in the end.
During the second series a perhaps slightly foolhardy decision was made. The controller of Radio 4 agreed with The Radio Times2 that the five new episodes of Hitchhiker's would all be broadcast in one week so as to get them to be the feature of the Radio Times' cover.
This ended up in more of Douglas Adams' legendary deadlines being missed than ever. Often the scripts were finished only hours before recording began and the cast sometimes had to resort to locking Douglas up until he wrote the script. Editing of the final episode was only finished on the day of actual broadcast and had to be rushed to Broadcasting House and only just arrived in time. I expect this cannot be classified as one of the more relaxing times in Douglas Adams' or any of the othe people involved's lives.
The Series Overall
In both series of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams' amazing sense for the strangely amazing but bizarrely mundane is always apparent. A core of Hitchhiker's following, the number 42 is so simply ordinary that it makes it so extraordinary that it is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. The comedy is continuous and once again it is things you can relate to from Earth that make the best jokes. The opening scene of the two bypasses is just like this. The first seems quite common a problem though perhaps the actual demolition of houses is a little extreme. But then it is taken to a completely different level and scale with a bypass right through Earth.
There is a distinct difference between the first and second series. Though both have Douglas Adams' wonderful pointless meanderings the first series really focuses on Arthur's discoveries and his troubles in coming to terms with the weirdness of space. Zaphod, for example, keeps on referring to him as 'monkey man' and similar insults to point out Arthur's general ignorance of space.
In the second series you begin to see Douglas Adams' love of the really weird and often philosophical ideas. The wonderful closing idea of the second series is that of the Ruler of the Universe who questions everything and treats everything as a philosophical idea. The Ruler of the Universe's first monologue (performed excellently by Stephen Moore, a.k.a. Marvin) lasts a little under two minutes but shows the beginnings of Douglas Adams' philosophical questions that appear in later books such as the thoroughly weird Dirk Gently books. I'll leave you with a transcript of that monologue so that you can see how funny it is. Though the only way to really enjoy it is to listen to the radio series.
'Pussy, pussy, pussy. Koochy, koochy, koochy. Pussy want his fish? Nice piece of fish. Pussy want it? Pussy not eat his fish, Pussy get thin and waste away. I think. I imagine this is what will happen, but how can I tell... I think it's better if I don't get involved. I think fish is nice, but then I think rain is wet so who am I to judge. Aaah, you're eating it. Fish comes from far away, or so I'm told, or so I imagine I am told. When the men come or when in my mind the men come in their big black shiny ships, do they come in your mind to? What do you see Pussy? When I hear their questions all their many questions, do you hear questions? Perhaps you think they're singing songs to you. Perhaps they are singing songs to you and I just think they are asking questions. Do you think they came today? I do. There's mud on the floor, cigarettes and whiskey on the table, fish on your plate and the memory of them in my mind, and look what else they've left me: crosswords, dictionaries and a calculator. I think I must be right in thinking they ask me questions. To come all that way and leave all these things just for the priviledge of singing to you would be very strange behaviour. Or so it seems to me. Who can tell? Who can tell?
I think I saw another ship in the sky today. A big white one. I've never seen a big white one before only six small black ones. Perhaps six small black ones can look like one big white one. Perhaps I'd like a glass of whiskey. Yes, that seems more likely. Perhaps some different people are coming to see me.'
