Posted in: TV | Tagged: Hitchhiker's Guide, HRL

Listen to the New Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – with Stephen Hawking as The Book Mark II

Published Thu, 08 Mar 2018 13:24:36 -0600

For the 40th anniversary of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dirk Maggs — who already adapted the Douglas Adams books Life the Universe and Everything, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, and Mostly Harmless into radio series to match the original Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy radio sitcom — has done the same to Eoin Colfer's sixth novel in the series, And Another Thing… incorporating other original work by the late Douglas Adams.

Starring as many of the original radio and TV actors as possible, with John Lloyd, flatmate of Douglas Adams and co-writer of the second series — and creator of Blackadder, Spitting Image, and QI — as The Book. And Stephen Hawking as The Book Mark II.

You can listen to the first episode free, worldwide, on the BBC Radio iPlayer.

With Zaphod Beeblebrox Making the Galaxy Great Again. This is what I reported on the new series last year from MCM.

Episode 1

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Hexagonal Phase Episode 1 of 6

Simon Jones stars as Arthur Dent in a brand new full-cast series based on And Another Thing…, the sixth book in the famous Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy.

Forty years on from the first ever radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent and friends return to be thrown back into the Whole General Mish Mash, in a rattling adventure involving Viking Gods and Irish Confidence Tricksters, with our first glimpse of Eccentrica Gallumbits and a brief but memorable moment with The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast Of Traal.

Starring John Lloyd as The Book, with Simon Jones as Arthur, Geoff McGivern as Ford Prefect, Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Sandra Dickinson and Susan Sheridan as Trillian, Jim Broadbent as Marvin the Paranoid Android and Jane Horrocks as Fenchurch. The cast also includes Samantha Béart, Toby Longworth, Andy Secombe, Ed Byrne, Lenny Henry, Philip Pope, Mitch Benn, Jon Culshaw and Professor Stephen Hawking.

The series is written and directed by Dirk Maggs and based on And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer, with additional unpublished material by Douglas Adams.

Music by Philip Pope
Production research by Kevin Jon Davies
Written and directed by Dirk Maggs
Based on the novel And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer, with additional material by Douglas Adams
Recorded at The Soundhouse Ltd by Gerry O'Riordan
Sound Design by Dirk Maggs

Produced by Dirk Maggs, Helen Chattwell and David Morley
A Perfectly Normal production for BBC Radio 4.