The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series)

From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.

The cover of the booklet included with the Collector's Edition CD set release of the first two Hitchhiker's radio series.

The very first version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was conceived as a science-fiction comedy series for radio. It was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom over the BBC, soon followed by global short wave broadcast over the BBC World Service, in 1978. Broadcasting by National Public Radio (one of their first to occur in stereo) in the USA followed in March, 1981, with a repeat broadcast in September.

Early Development

The cover of the cassette release of the radio documentary Douglas Adams's Guide to the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Douglas Adams had contributed comedy sketches for BBC radio programmes produced by Simon Brett (including The Burkiss Way and Week Ending, among others). The two of them came up with an idea for a radio science-fiction comedy series in early 1977.

Originally to be called The Ends of the Earth, each episode would have ended with the planet Earth meeting its demise in a different way. While writing the first episode, Douglas said that he needed a character who knew what was going to happen and provide a point of view. Douglas decided to make this character an alien, and, remembering an idea he supposedly had had while laying drunk in a field in Innsbruck, Austria in 1971, decided that this character would be a "roving reporter" for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Later recollections by his friends at the time (see Hitchhiker by M.J. Simpson) indicate that Adams first spoke openly of the idea of "hitch-hiking around the galaxy" while on Holiday in Greece, in 1973.

Douglas wrote his first outlines (which are republished in the book Don't Panic by Neil Gaiman) in Spring 1977. A pilot episode was commissioned on 1 March 1977, and the recording was completed on 28 June 1977. Simon and Douglas both later recounted different parts of the process for getting the pilot episode recorded, including having to convince the BBC that such a programme could not be recorded with a studio audience, and their desire to record in stereo sound. In fact, to win this latter argument, Hitchhiker's was briefly classified as a Drama instead of a Comedy, as Drama programmes were allowed to be recorded in stereo, and Comedy programmes were not, in 1977.

A full series of six episodes (five new episodes, plus the pilot) were commissioned on 31 August 1977. However, Douglas had in the meantime sent a copy of the Hitchhiker's pilot episode to the BBC's Doctor Who production office, and was thus commissioned to write a four part Doctor Who serial (The Pirate Planet) a few weeks later. In addition, Simon Brett had departed the BBC, and the final five episodes in the first series were produced by Geoffrey Perkins.

With conflicting writing committments, Douglas brought his friend John Lloyd in for writing assistance on what are known as "Fit the Fifth" and "Fit the Sixth." Aside from the later Infocom computer game, (and, one could argue, the movie screenplay), this is the only instance of any form of Hitchhiker's having a co-writer credit. All of the episodes, including those completed after Douglas' death, are referred to as 'Fits,' after Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark: an Agony, in Eight Fits." Production of "Fit the Second" was done in November, 1977. The script of the last episode of the first series (later retitled "The Primary Phase") was completed in February 1978, and production (including sound mixing and effects) was completed on 3 March 1978.

Music used in the series

One of Adams' stated goals was to be experimental in the use of sound, thus the use of stereo sound (which he later said that before Hitchhiker's it was deemed impossible and after Hitchhiker's it was made compulsory in radio comedy). Being a fan of Pink Floyd and the Beatles (and especially the experimental albums both bands produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s) Adams also wanted to incorporate other bits of music from a variety of artists. This was only achieved during the first series. There were, naturally, some problems with copyrights (see the Trivia section below, for more). During the second series, Paddy Kingsland was commissioned to provide background music, and in the third through fifth series, that role has been given to Paul 'Wix' Wickens.

The instrumental title theme, Journey of the Sorcerer, by US rock band The Eagles, was re-interpreted by The Illegal Eagles, a tribute band, using an arrangement by Philip Pope. This was done for all of the CD releases of the Quandary and Quintessential Phases due to licensing reasons (though the original track was used for the original radio transmissions and the on-demand downloads).

In the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts, excerpts from these other musical pieces are acknowledged (in order of use):

• A Modern Mass for the Dead (Requiem) by György Ligeti
• A Rainbow in Curved Air by Terry Riley
• Volumina by György Ligeti
• Wind on water by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno
• Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band by Terry Riley
• Cachaca by Patrick Moraz
• Shine on You Crazy Diamond (intro) by Pink Floyd
• Rock and Roll Music by The Beatles
• Also sprach Zarathustra (intro) by Richard Strauss
• Katakomben by Gruppe Between
• Space Theme by Stomu Yamashta
• Oxygene by Jean-Michel Jarre
• That's Entertainment by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz
• Over Fire Island by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno
• Miracles of the Gods by Absolute Everywhere
• Mikrophoniet by Karlheinz Stockhausen
• Melodien by György Ligeti
• The Engulfed Cathedral by Isao Tomita
• Volkstanz by Gruppe Between
• What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong

Trivia

A scene from Fit the Third in which the characters step out onto Magrathea was cut from commerially released recordings of the radio series, because it featured copyrighted music (Marvin hums like Pink Floyd, then "sings" Rock and Roll Music by the Beatles, and finally the theme music from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the opening "Sunrise" movement from Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra). It would have been very cost prohibitive in the 1980s to get clearances to release a recording of Fit the Third with this music, though agreements were reached on most of the rest of the copyrighted music used during the first series. As a result, all commercial recordings of Fit the Third are about two minutes shorter than other episodes. Recordings of the original radio broadcasts still contain it [4] (http://www.jwhitham.org.uk/magrathea/).

A variation of this scene was re-recorded for the LP, using music that "sounds" like Pink Floyd without actually being taken from any of their albums. This made Arthur's line "Do you realize that robot can hum like Pink Floyd?" literally true. The next bit, about the Beatles, is left out, but as Zaphod is announcing that he discovered a way into Magrathea, the "Zarathustra" introduction/theme is played again.

Quite similarly, the original Eagles version of the "Journey of the Sorcerer" theme tune is only allowed to be released with the first eighteen radio episodes in the UK and Ireland. Copies of the first three radio series released to the rest of the world are required to use a "sound-alike" version of this song. With the Quandary and Quintessential Phases, all CD copies worldwide are using a "sound-alike" version of the title tune.

The complete first series was rebroadcast twice in 1978, and once in 1979. The complete second series was rebroadcast once in 1980, and the complete original run of 12 episodes was broadcast twice over a twelve-week period, once from April to June, 1981 and the second time from the end of March to the start of June, 1983.

The first two radio series were the first programmes of any kind released on CD by the BBC Radio Collection. In 2001, they became the first programmes of any kind re-released by the BBC Radio Collection in an MP3-CD format. In 2006, the Tertiary Phase will become the first programme of any kind released by BBC Audio on a DVD-Audio disc.

The Primary and Secondary Phases

Front cover of the BBC Radio Collection release of the "Second Series" (Fits 7-12) of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Main article: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Primary and Secondary Phases

The first radio series (first six episodes) were broadcast in March and April, 1978. A seventh episode was broadcast on 24 December 1978. The final five episodes, completing the second radio series, were broadcast in January 1980.

The two series were first released on audio cassette and CD in 1988, marking the tenth anniversary of the first broadcast of "Fit the First." It was the first time that the BBC Radio Collection division of BBC Enterprises had ever released a radio series on CD. The two radio series were known simply as "the first series" and "the second series" until 1992. The BBC was about to give the series its first re-release on CD and audio cassette when Adams (according to the 25th anniversary reprinting of the radio script book) suggested that they could retitle Fits the First through Sixth as "The Primary Phase" and Fits the Seventh through Twelfth as "The Secondary Phase." The episodes were released with those titles in 1993, and again in 1998, for the series' twentieth anniversary.

Nick Webb's biography of Douglas Adams, Wish You Were Here, names many of the other staff members of the BBC who worked on the first two radio series. Sound and effects for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop were by Paddy Kingsland, Dick Mills and Harry Parker. The Chief Sound Engineer was Alick Hale-Munro, and Anne Ling was the production secretary. The "Technical Team" is given as: Paul Hawdon, Lisa Braun (studio manager), Colin Duff (studio manager), Eric Young, Martha Knight, Max Alcock and John Whitehall.

New adaptations of books three, four and five

Main article: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Tertiary to Quintessential Phases

In November 2003, two years after Douglas' death and 23 years after the production on the Secondary Phase had ceased, a new radio adaptation of Life, the Universe, and Everything was announced, to become the third series of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on radio. However, after all six episodes had been recorded by Above the Title Productions, a minor legal dispute erupted between the production company and Walt Disney Productions who had started production on the Hitchhiker's movie, also in 2003. According to an updated appendix for the U.S. Edition of Wish You Were Here, Nick Webb's biography of Douglas Adams, the dispute centered over the online availability of the Tertiary Phase and its sequels. Eventually a deal was worked out, and the Tertiary Phase began broadcasting on BBC Radio 4 on 21 September 2004.

These new episodes reunited most of the living original cast. The parts of The Book, Eddie the Computer and Slartibartfast were recast, with William Franklyn, Roger Gregg and Richard Griffiths taking over these three roles, respectively. Peter Jones, the original narrator, had died in 2000, Richard Vernon, the original Slartibartfast, had died in 1997, and David Tate, who had voiced Eddie the Computer (among many other roles), had died in 1996. Bill Wallis, who played Mr Prosser and Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz in the original series, was unavailable, and Toby Longworth took the role of Jeltz in the new series. John Marsh, who had been the continuity announcer for Fits Two-Twelve, was rehired to reprise this role. In another continuity nod, the term 'Fit' is still used in place of 'episode.'

Each episode was broadcast on a Tuesday afternoon, repeated on a Thursday evening, and audio streams in RealPlayer and Windows Media format (including versions in 5.1 stereo) were made available on Radio 4's website until the following Thursday. A 3 CD set of the Tertiary Phase was released in mid-October 2004, before the final episodes were broadcast. These CDs contain extended material, previously cut to make 27 minute episodes for radio.

This production, as well as adaptations for books four and five (broadcast as the Quandary and Quintessential Phases [which were recorded in December 2004 and January 2005 ]) was adapted, directed, and co-produced by Dirk Maggs. Dirk had previously consulted with Douglas on potential radio adaptations for the final three books in 1993 and 1997. The project was re-started in September 2001 by Maggs, Helen Chattwell and Bruce Hyman, with help from Jane Belson and Ed Victor.

The six-part "Tertiary Phase" was broadcast in September and October, 2004. The four part "Quandary Phase" was broadcast in May, 2005, and the four part "Quintessential Phase" was broadcast immediately following, in May and June 2005. A 2 CD set of the Quandary Phase was released at the end of May, 2005, and a 2 CD set of the Quintessential Phase was released at the end of June, 2005. Both sets will again include material that was originally cut for reasons of timing.

After the Fifth Series

A script book for the final fourteen episodes is due to be released in July 2005.

The Online BBC Shop (http://www.bbcshop.com) will be releasing a DVD Audio of the Tertiary Phase, in 5.1 surround sound, in April 2006. Dirk Maggs confirmed in a web chat (http://www.douglasadams.se/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5357) that DVD-A discs of all three phases are due out in 2006.

References

• The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts by Douglas Adams and Geoffrey Perkins (US printing, 1985).
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts by Douglas Adams and Geoffrey Perkins, with additional material by M. J. Simpson (UK printing, 2003).
• Douglas Adams's Guide to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio 4 programme, broadcast 5 March 1998.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy DVD release, featuring a behind-the-scenes look at "Fit the Ninth."
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Collector's Edition 8 CD set, containing the original 12 radio episodes from 1978 and 1980, as well as an interview and the aforementioned Guide to the Hitchhiker's Guide.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Tertiary Phase 3 CD set.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Quandary Phase 2 CD set.
• Don't Panic by Neil Gaiman, second revised edition, with additional material by David K. Dickson, 1993.
• Hitchhiker by M. J. Simpson, first U.S. printing, 2003. ISBN 1-932112-17-0
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Production Diary by Dirk Maggs and Bruce Hyman. BBC Radio 4 Web Page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/diary.shtml), accessed 13 June 2005.
• The Pocket Essential Hitchhiker's Guide by M. J. Simpson. Original Foreword and Foreword to the 2005 Edition by Simon Jones. Published by Pocket Essentials, Harpenden, UK, 2005. ISBN 1-904048-46-3
• DouglasAdams.se Webchat with Dirk Maggs (http://www.douglasadams.se/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5357) 16 June 2005.

External links

• BBC Radio 4 website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/) (includes information on the new radio series)
• Above The Title Productions (http://www.abovethetitle.com/hh_home.html) (production company behind the new radio series)
• Dirk Maggs (http://www.dswilliams.co.uk/dirk%20maggs/main%20page.htm) (director of the new radio series)

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