New HHGTTG Radio Show Gets Douglas Adams' Voice 197
trellick writes "The BBC has not only announced that they are to make radio adaptations to The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy's final three books: Life, The Universe and Everything; So Long and Thanks For All the Fish; and Mostly Harmless. Also, Douglas Adams is to himself provide the voice of Agrajag, the character constantly being reincarnated and dying at the (inadvertent) hands of Arthur Dent, since Adams 'always intended to play the part of Agrajag and recorded himself in the part a few years ago.' Wonderful stuff!"
More details ... (Score:1, Informative)
by Jason Deans.
The voice of Douglas Adams, creator of hugely successful comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, will reach out from the grave in a new BBC Radio 4 adaptation of the three sequels to the original story that have never before been dramatised on radio or TV.
BBC producers will use his voice from earlier recordings of the sequels in which Adams, who died in 2001, provided the voice for Agrajag, an alien who is always being accidentally killed by the main character, Arthur Dent.
These recordings have been incorporated into Radio 4's six-part dramatisation of Life, the Universe and Everything, which is to be broadcast in September.
Another yet-to-be-recorded eight-part series is planned for next year, adapting the two remaining books, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish and Mostly Harmless.
Life, the Universe and Everything features all the surviving members of the main original cast, with Simon Jones reprising the role of the hapless Dent, Geoffrey McGivern as Ford Prefect, Susan Sheridan as Trillian, Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox and Stephen Moore as Marvin the Paranoid Android.
Richard Griffiths takes over from the late Richard Vernon as Slartibartfast, Roger Gregg provides the voice of Eddie the computer following the death of David Tate, and in the narrator role of the Book, the voice of William Franklin will be heard instead of the late Peter Jones.
There are also cameos from a host of stars, including Leslie Phillips, Joanna Lumley and plummy-voiced cricket commentator Henry Blofeld.
The new Hitchhiker's adaptation has been written and directed by Dirk Maggs, who first talked to Adams about dramatising the three remaining books in the series nearly 10 years ago and has stuck closely to the late author's instructions on how it should be done.
Maggs said he had first discussed a new adaptation of the Hitchhiker's books with Adams in 1993, but at that time the rights situation surrounding the property was complex and would have required considerable legal fees to sort out.
"In the end it just ran out of steam. So we said 'let's shelve it and come back to it'," he added.
The pair returned to the idea of a new Hitchhiker's radio show in the late 90s, but Adams did not fancy going back to adapt the books he had written, according to Maggs.
"It would have been like writing something twice. It didn't appeal. But to set the tone, he actually wrote half an hour of the series, which appears in episodes one and two. So there's half an hour of totally original stuff," said Maggs.
"I wanted to adapt as closely as possible [to what Douglas would have wanted]. We had discussed a game plan for the first series," he added.
"He always said he wanted Hitchhiker's to sound like a 'rock album for ears'. He was very big on cinema effects and music."
But plans for the new Radio 4 Hitchhiker's drama did not really start to come together until after Adams death, aged just 49, in May 2001.
Maggs and Bruce Hyman, the producer of the new Hitchhiker's adaptation who runs independent radio production company Above The Title, met at Adams memorial service and began discussing how they would approach the project.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
http://media.guardian.co.uk/radio/story/0,1
Man. Am I glad I have Sat. Radio, now. (Score:2, Informative)
Hopefully they'll also make available over internet stream, though.
Re:Just so very fitting.. (Score:2, Informative)
alot of differnt shows that aired only once on the BBC and a huge amount of differnt radio shows on BBC. And of course the Detective Dirk Gently which was always my fav. A long dark tea time of the soul was the first book i read of his and any Hitchers that havent met Dirk yeah u have been missing alot. All quirky and strange but some how simple comedy that is in all the HHGTTG can also be found in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.
Audio Books... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Man. Am I glad I have Sat. Radio, now. (Score:5, Informative)
Quite probably - both live [bbc.co.uk] and through my favouritest thing ever, Listen Again [bbc.co.uk].
RealAudio, but pretty high quality...
Re:strangely appropriate (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Brilliant (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, DA was trying to get the BBC to dramatise the books. It didn't come off during his lifetime, but as part of the planning for it, he did a readthrough in which he "acted" all the voices - including Agrajag, and this was taped. They reckoned they had enough to voice the (relatively minor, but very Adams-ish) part. (From BBC radio today).
Reply: I smoke while I shoot the bird... (Score:3, Informative)
They are.
The article even says that "[Douglas] Adams had been working on a film version for more than a decade, but it had never got past the planning stage." In the posthumous book The Salmon of Doubt it is said that the movie will come out "any decade now".
However, the project finally seems to be getting somewhere. The cast [douglasadams.com] is known, and Slashdot even covered [slashdot.org] an interview [go.com] that the screenwriter had with himself.
The movie won't be released tomorrow, though. The first episode of the new radio series will. (Actually, today from where I'm posting.)
Re:strangely appropriate (Score:5, Informative)
Re:When? (Score:4, Informative)
British Summer Time, which is UTC + 1.
You can listen to BBC Radio 4 [bbc.co.uk] live on the Internet, and you can listen to the last episode of every programme, which means you'll probably be able to listen to the first episode of the new series all week.
If you're in the United Kingdom, you can actually use your radio to listen to BBC Radio 4. 92 MHz or 95 MHz FM, or 198 kHz AM (LW).
The website is up and you can hear some of it now (Score:3, Informative)
The first of the new series (The Tertiary Phase) has been completed, and the rest are yet to be recorded.
Re:One drawback... (Score:5, Informative)
You must have read the censored American version of "Life, The Universe And Everything", and not the real thing [fatalmind.com].
Re:Consistancy at last? (Score:2, Informative)
Um... You're misremembering I think. Arthur wasn't killed by the bullet. If you wanted to make sure the earth couldn't be destroyed, you'd have to save the life of the bloke standing BEHIND Arthur, cos it was Agrajag, Arthur moved to one side and it hit him.
That's why Agrajag couldn't kill arthur when they met in his lair when he was wearing his "Revenge" body. Cos arthur hadn't been to the nightclub yet.
Re:Just so very fitting.. (Score:2, Informative)