The Original Radio Scripts contains the scripts to all twelve of the original radio episodes of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. These are now generally known as the Primary Phase and Secondary Phase.
Script Writers
1 Douglas Adams
2 Douglas Adams and
John Lloyd
Radio Details1 Douglas Adams
2 Douglas Adams and
John Lloyd
30 Minutes / BBC Radio 4 / Colour
Season One
08/03/78 Fit the First 1
15/03/78 Fit the Second 2
22/03/78 Fit the Third 2
29/03/78 Fit the Fourth 2
05/04/78 Fit the Fifth 2
12/04/78 Fit the Sixth 2
Special
24/12/78 Fit the Seventh 1
Season Two
21/01/79 Fit the Eighth 1
22/01/79 Fit the Ninth 1
23/01/79 Fit the Tenth 1
24/01/79 Fit the Eleventh 1
25/01/79 Fit the Twelth 1
Archive Details / CD Releases / Downloads
All radio episodes of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy have been released on CD (Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / HMV.com). The Primary Phase (iTunes) and Secondary Phase (iTunes) are also available as downloads. The television series has been released on Region 2 DVD in the UK (Amazon.co.uk / HMV.com), and on Region 1 DVD in the United States (Amazon.com).
The Original Radio Scripts
Publisher Pan Books Format Paperback Publication Date 1985 ISBN 0330292889 Original Price UNKNOWN Country UK
The Original Hitchhiker Radio ScriptsSo you think you know all there is to know about Douglas Adams's HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY?
- You've read all the books,
- You've seen the TV program,
- (You've even got your towel ready),
- You've listened to the show on radio,
But you haven't read or seen anything like
THE ORIGINAL HITCHHIKER RADIO SCRIPTS!
Unavailable for years, here are the complete, unedited scripts from the original BBC "Hitchhiker Radio Show", as broadcast in the United States on National Public Radio.
It's all here — ARTHUR DENT's cosmic trek through the universe in its original form as Douglas Adams first conceived it! — with FORD PREFECT, Arthur's best buddy and cohort; ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX, two-headed, three-armed ex-head honcho of the universe; SLARTIBARTFAST, award-winning coastline designer; MARVIN, the paranoid android; and all the outrageous places and momentous events you're fanatically devoted to. But that's not all! You also get:
- Douglas Adams's worldly words "Where do you get all your ideas from?"
- Characters that have never before appeared in any other Hitchhiker medium
- Previously censored material (usually cut for reasons of time, but...)
- Behind the scenes notes about the production of the radio show that told the world how sound effects were created.
Now you can read along with reruns of the show!
Or, even better, you can put on Hitchhiker performances of your own!
Publisher Harmony Books Format Paperback Publication Date 1985 ISBN 0517559501 Original Price UNKNOWN Country USA
The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts
Publisher Harmony Books Format Paperback Publication Date 1995 ISBN 0517883848 Original Price UNKNOWN Country USA
The Original Radio Scripts
Publisher Pan Books Format Paperback Publication Date 2003 ISBN 0330419579 Original Price UNKNOWN Country UK
General Notes
- Sections from both of the 1970s/1980s radio serials were later used as the basis for BBC2's six-part television version of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy in 1981, which saw some of the radio cast, including Simon Jones (Arthur Dent), Peter Jones (Voice of the Book), Mark Wing-Davey (Zaphod Beeblebrox) and Stephen Moore (Marvin) reprising their roles.
Other versions of the story include the computer game, stage play, audio adaptations and, most recently, the movie, released during 2005. - Douglas Adams eventually wrote five Hitch-Hiker's novels, with the radio scripts mainly adapted in the first two, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
The third novel, Life, the Universe and Everything, is based on a script for an unproduced Doctor Who movie called Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen. The fourth and fifth novels, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless, were completely original works.
These three books were finally adapted for BBC Radio 4 (re-uniting the majority of the original radio cast in the process) by Dirk Maggs, and broadcast in two batches in 2004 and 2005. The scripts to all three serials were published by Pan Books in 2005 as The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Radio Scripts: The Tertiary, Quandary and Quintessential Phases.
- Douglas Adams is today best known for creating The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but many people are completely unaware that he was also the script editor on Season Seventeen of Doctor Who.
As well as sneeking a cheeky Hitchhiker's reference about Oolon Caluphid's Origins of the Universe into Terry Nation's Destiny of the Daleks, he wrote the four-part The Pirate Planet for Season Sixteen, co-wrote the four-part City of Death (under the name David Agnew) for Season Seventeen and also scripted Shada, which was abandoned part-way through filming due to industrial action at the BBC.
None of his three stories for Doctor Who were ever officially novelised (although various fan-produced versions have been written, and the script to Shada was released alongside the cobbled-together video version), but he did re-use parts of the stories to City of Death and Shada in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (see image right).
