Archive Douglas Adams/Hitchhiker’s Guide news for November 2003

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29th November 2003
Roger (Eddie the computer) Gregg interviewed in new SFX
The latest issue of SFX has a short feature on the Tertiary Phase which includes comments from Roger Gregg, the new voice of Eddie the computer and the man behind Ireland’s highly acclaimed, award-winning audio SF comedy company Crazy Dog Audio Theatre. He calls his role in the show, “a chance to work with the best audio producer in the world with an all-star cast, in the most historic radio production ever, based on the books by one of the best authors ever” and compares it to playing with the Beatles. However SFX lose marks for misspelling ‘Trillian’, getting Mark Wing-Davey’s name wrong, saying there will be 16 (not 14) new episodes, claiming that the late Richard Vernon will be playing Slartibartfast(!) and, um, calling Roger Gregg ‘Richard Gregg.’ Oh dear, that wouldn’t have happened in my day.

28th November 2003
Shada CD released
Something which snuck out last week without my noticing it (sorry!) is the CD release of ‘Shada’, the recent webcast version of the notorious ‘lost’ Douglas Adams Doctor Who adventure. This two-disc audio-only version is slightly longer than the webcast which is still available on the BBC’s Doctor Who site, with accompanying Flash animation.

28th November 2003
eBaywatch for week ending 28th November
It’s a busy old week on eBay. Boxed sets of Douglas Adams books are always rare (apart from that Mostly Brilliant box from last year) and here’s one of the earliest: the original three Pan UK paperbacks in a boxed set entitled Don’t Panic (ends 3rd December; no bids yet; starting price $6.99). Here’s a very nice copy of the original UK hardback of Hitchhiker’s Guide (ends 5th December; no bids yet; starting price £100.00); note the blank rear dustjacket which I believe marks it as a true first hardback edition. Or buy a similar copy with an Arthur Barker edition of Restaurant, if you can afford it (ends 29th November; no bids yet; starting price $49.99 – dig that kibblesworth!).

It’s now twelve years since Voyager Expanded Books released an electronic edition of the four (as was) Hitchhiker’s novels in Hypercard – get yourself a copy here (ends 29th November; no bids yet; starting price $4.50) or bid for the Voyager edition of Last Chance to See here (ends 30th November; latest bid £1.50). Want a book you can’t actually read, even with a computer? How about the first novel in Turkish (ends 1st December; no bids yet; starting price $4.90)? Or a Russian omnibus of all five novels (ends 29th November; no bids yet; starting price $8.95), as recently featured on the back cover of MH90. But the rarest thing currently on eBay, a terrific collector’s item, is an uncut litho print of the packaging for the Isis 1994 British four-CD release of the unabridged Hitchhiker’s talking book (ends 1st December; latest bid £21.00). A whole bunch of these CD boxes were signed by Douglas as a ‘limited edition’ but it seems only two of the litho sheets – effectively a printer’s test run – received the old Adams signature. This would look fantastic framed.

27th November 2003
Czech Don’t Panic received
The new Czech edition of Nepropadejte panice: Douglas Adams a StopafiÛv prÛvodce galaxií arrived this morning. Published by Argo, who have also published all five Hitchhiker’s novels, it has a complementary cover design featuring a picture of Douglas Adams which is, if anything, even more horrible and unrecognisable than the one on the recent German edition. Even more annoyingly – and in a breach of my original contract (though this is Argo’s fault, not Titan’s) – the Czech book completely fails to credit David K Dickson and myself.

27th November 2003
Tertiary Phase news spreads
A mere six weeks after it was announced as a scoop in issue 90 of Mostly Harmless, and nearly a month after I exclusively posted full details here, the press are finally starting to mention the Tertiary Phase. There is a short piece in next week’s Radio Times and news stories in the current issues of Dreamwatch and TV Zone. None of these add any info to what is already known, although the TV Zone story does include a couple of brief quotes from a frankly startled-sounding Neil Gaiman, who was approached about writing the series when it was originally in development in the mid-1990s.

24th November 2003
Neil Gaiman interviewed about Don’t Panic
There is a lengthy interview with Neil Gaiman about his memories of writing the recently reissued Don’t Panic at Science Fiction Weekly – including some very kind words about my own humble contribution – and Neil has also recently added some thoughts on Douglas Adams to his own on-line journal at NeilGaiman.com. (Thanks to Dop for spotting this.)

24th November 2003
ZZ9 AGM on TV and on-line
As expected, the ZZ9 AGM was featured briefly but prominently on Saturday’s edition of The Big Read. There are also photos of the event on-line.

21st November 2003
ZZ9 AGM on Big Read tomorrow
Douglas Spencer reports that the footage shot by the BBC at last week’s ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha AGM will be broadcast in tomorrow’s edition of The Big Read, which is on BBC 2 at 9.00pm.

21st November 2003
eBaywatch for week ending 21st November
There’s a very early interview with Douglas Adams in this 1979 issue of Melody Maker (ends 29th November; no bids yet; starting price £1.50). Oh, now this is odd – a proof copy of the US edition of The Illustrated Hitchhiker’s Guide (ends 23rd November; no bids yet; starting price $25.00). Never seen one of those before. And here’s something else unusual: a sampler CD from BBC Audio which includes an extract from the Primary Phase of HHGG (ends 26th November; latest bid £1.04). Must be quite recent, and was presumably given away free but I don’t know where or when.

20th November 2003
Arthur and Ford make surprise appearance at ZZ9 meeting!
The monthly London pub meeting for members of ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha had two surprise guests last night when Simon Jones and Geoffrey McGivern turned up for a drink and a chat, fresh from the Tertiary Phase wrap party. With director/animator Kevin Davies also on hand, that made three Honorary Members in one pub.

20th November 2003
Polish HHGG website
I have added Grzegorz Andrelczyk’s excellent Polish Hitchhiker’s Guide site, Nie Panikuj, to my links page.

19th November 2003
Tertiary Phase completes principal recording
The Tertiary Phase of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, adapted from Life, the Universe and Everything, completed principal recording today. The cast have taped one episode each day (give or take) since Wednesday 12th November. Special guest Joanna Lumley, playing the woman at the party with a head like Sydney Opera House, recorded her contribution on Monday and Leslie Phillips recorded Hactar’s lines today. Two further days of recording are planned in the next week or so: one for William Franklyn’s narration, and one for Fred Trueman and Henry Blofeld’s cricket commentary. Kevin Davies, director of The Making of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, has been videoing the proceedings, and members of the cast have taken a lot of photographs.

19th November 2003
TechTV programme repeat scheduled
According to a post from ‘Diana’ on alt.fan.douglas-adams, the episode of Big Thinkers about Douglas Adams is scheduled for a repeat on American cable channel TechTV at 1.30pm Central Time on 26th November. This was Douglas’ last TV interview, recorded only a few days before he died.

19th November 2003
First Tertiary Phase cast photo on-line
Stephen Moore has posted a publicity photo of the core cast of The Tertiary Phase on his website. From left to right: Geoffrey McGivern (Ford), William Franklyn (The Book), Mark Wing-Davey (Zaphod), Susan Sheridan (Trillian), Stephen Moore (Marvin) and Simon Jones (Arthur – in the original dressing gown from the TV series). For comparison, here are Jones, McGivern and Wing-Davey as they were in November 1978 (together with Alan Ford, the late David Tate and of course Douglas Adams).

16th November 2003
Starship Titanic/HHGG game designer interviewed
Nicolas Botti has added another great interview to his website, Le Guide Galactique. This time it’s Adam Shaikh, who was principal designer on the Starship Titanic game and also on the aborted graphical adventure game of Hitchhiker’s Guide. Adam was at TDV/h2g2 Ltd pretty much from start to finish and offers some interesting insights into the company. The interview is only in English at the moment but a French translation is coming soon.

16th November 2003
Exclusive! Leslie Phillips joins Tertiary Phase cast
The role of supercomputer Hactar in the Tertiary Phase has been recast. Originally the part was to have been played by John Fortune, but he had to drop out because of filming commitments on Rory Bremner’s next TV series. When I announced the cast at the start of this month, the role was assigned to Frederick Treves but he has also had to pull out for personal reasons. Fortunately a replacement has been found in the shape of veteran comedy actor Leslie Phillips. Seventy-nine year-old Phillips starred in The Navy Lark, the longest-running BBC radio sitcom, from 1959 to 1977 and nowadays is the voice of the Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter films.

15th November 2003
BBC films ZZ9 AGM for Big Read
An added attraction at today’s Annual General Meeting of the Official Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Society in Peterborough was the presence of a BBC camera crew filming a segment for an upcoming edition of The Big Read. Each week, as well as featuring three books in detail, The Big Read visits a literary society or book group; I was interviewed in my capacity as Research Archivist and footage was taken of the society members mingling, debating and drinking. The broadcast date for this segment is not yet known. Results of the ZZ9 committee elections were, thanks to the wonders of technology, posted to the society’s e-mail bounce direct from the AGM earlier this evening.

14th November 2003
Nick Webb interview lined up for SFX
Lucy Ramsey at Headline has confirmed that an interview with Nick Webb and a review of Wish You Were Here should be in the next issue of SFX, which will go on sale on 26th October. Lucy has also tracked down a copy of the previously mentioned Leeds Guide review of Nick’s book: “It's perhaps the ultimate credit to Webb that he can be just as funny as Adams in his writing. With many of the same veins of humour that Adams had running throughout this biography, it's as if the great hitchhiker has never really left.”

14th November 2003
Tertiary Phase director and actor to attend convention
Leading Irish science fiction fan James Bacon has announced that Dirk Maggs and Roger Gregg will be among the guests at next year’s Irish National SF Convention or Octocon. Maggs is writer/director of the Hitchhiker’s Guide Tertiary Phase, while Gregg plays Eddie the computer and is also the man behind the award-winning sci-fi/horror comedies of Crazy Dog Audio Theatre. Octocon 2004, which has not yet added Dirk and Roger’s names to its website, will be held in Dublin over 16th-17th October, about halfway through the broadcast of the Quadrenary/Quintessential Phases.

14th November 2003
eBaywatch for week ending 14th November
Hmm, this CD is of dubious legality, and will of course only give you vinyl quality sound because it’s just a recording of the Restaurant LP, but it’s there if you want it and also includes both Marvin singles (ends 19th November; latest bid £0.01...). And this is interesting: it’s just the original 1988 six-cassette release of the radio series. The packaging isn’t nearly as interesting as it looks, it’s not signed or anything, and the whole thing has been reissued on cassette and CD plenty of times – but look at what people are bidding (ends 17th November; latest bid £36.00).

14th November 2003
Unknown Bloomsbury Review book features Adams interview
Spotted on eBay just before bidding closed yesterday is a previously undocumented addition to the Douglas Adams bibliography. Living in Words: Interviews from The Bloomsbury Review 1981-1988 includes an interview with Douglas Adams entitled ‘Ultimate Questions and Galactic Whimsies’ by Christopher Larsen. Edited by Gregory McNamee, the 173-page book was published by Breitenbuch book of Portland, Oregon in 1988. Other authors featured include Raymond Carver, William Burroughs, Joseph Campbell and Margaret Drabble.

13th November 2003
New Yorker reviews Hitchhiker
The new issue of prestigious American magazine The New Yorker includes a short review of the US edition of Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams. “Douglas Adams emerges in this biography as an epic procrastinator who, at the time of his death, in 2001, had been working (or not) on his final novel for nearly a decade,” says the unnamed reviewer. “Adams began his career writing radio shows for the BBC, and episodes of his life read like comedy sketches ... Simpson scrupulously uncovers Adams’s inspirations, from Doctor Who to a pretentious college roommate who wrote ‘awful poetry about swans’.”

11th November 2003
Sunday Herald WYWH review received
Thanks to Eilidh Pennel, I have now seen a copy of the exceptionally savage review of Wish You Were Here published in the Sunday Herald on 26th October. Colin Waters calls the book “a near hagiography” and says Nick Webb’s comparison of Douglas Adams to Nabokov is “so bogus, you don’t know where to begin refuting it.” He sums up: “Adams was as temperamentally unsuited to writing as Webb is to produce his biography. He absolutely refuses to discharge his duties.”

11th November 2003
More Big Read credits
Thanks to the vigilance of David Haddock, I can now bring you the production credits for Saturday’s Big Read programme on Hitchhiker’s Guide. It was produced and directed by documentary maker Deep Sehgal and the other credits were: Mike Fox, camera; Mike Lax, sound; David Freeman, graphics; Kevin Gash and Ioannis Kritikopoulos, design; Deborah Charles, assistant director; Jessica French, production co-ordinator; Lynette Quinlan, assistant producer; and Jimmy Edmonds, film editor.

11th November 2003
Sanjeev Bhaskar DNA.com mystery
In a rare update on Saturday, douglasadams.com promoted Sanjeev Bhaskar’s Big Read programme about Hitchhiker’s Guide, and added the following tantalising comment: ‘Sanjeev - if you're reading this, drop us a line - we have something really cool to tell you.’ The Duke of Dunstable speculates on his site that this might be a role for Bhaskar in the HHGG movie, although the normal approach for such a thing would be through his agent. My guess is that the film-makers have – either consequently or coincidentally – followed Bhaskar’s lead by casting Stephen Hawking as Deep Thought. But we shall wait and see…

11th November 2003
HHGG Scripts 25th Anniversary edition going cheap
Cheapo-cheapo booksellers The Book People are flogging the 25th Anniversary Edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts for a bargaintastic £3.99 (plus postage).

8th November 2003
Big Read features amazing all-star cast!
Tonight’s edition of The Big Read, with its segment on Hitchhiker’s Guide presented by Sanjeev Bhaskar, featured an extraordinary cast in its dramatised segments. Sir Patrick Moore provided the voice of the Guide, Roger Lloyd Pack (Trigger from Only Fools and Horses) was Slartibartfast, Adam and Joe were Lunkwill/Loonquawl and Fook/Phouchg, Nigel Planer was the voice of Marvin (an imaginative costume topped with a camera lens and a perspex dome), and Professor Stephen Hawking was the voice of Deep Thought! Comedian Spencer Brown played Ford and Bhaskar himself took the role of Arthur Dent. (Also in the cast were puppeteer Chris Pirie and Paul Sahota – surely not the Canadian wrestler of that name? – who were presumably operating Marvin.)

The Guide itself was a neat-looking prop, displaying genuine computer graphics; no design credits were included in the programme but I should have details soon. Although there were a couple of footling factual errors (the radio show conceived as a twelve-part series, Marvin based on a former flatmate), on the whole it was an informed and informative look at how the story came about, why it was so groundbreaking and why it has remained so popular. There was also a fun homage to The Illustrated Guide in a scene where Arthur catches sight of the bulldozers in his shaving mirror. Hitchhiker’s Guide started the programme at number six in the list but by the end had risen to number five, overtaking Harry Potter! Lord of the Rings remains at number one.

7th November 2003
Big Read reminder
Don’t forget that tomorrow The Big Read features Sanjeev Bhaskar championing Hitchhiker’s Guide. The programme is on at 9.00pm on BBC 2, and Bhaskar’s segment starts at 9.30pm. Trailers have been running all week, and this will be our first chance to see what the story can look like when presented using real computer graphics.

7th November 2003
Guardian publishes review correction
Today’s Guardian has published my letter regarding their review of Don’t Panic last week, pointing out that David K Dickson and I were responsible for the added chapters. (Thanks to Dop for this.)

7th November 2003
eBaywatch for week ending 7th November
In a fallow week – lots of items but mostly the usual, little rare or exciting – what a delight to find this, posted by somebody who has clearly spent far too long playing the Infocom game of Hitchhiker’s Guide (ends 9th November; no bids yet; starting price $0.01). What else do we have? Well, there’s a double-sided Pan Books promo poster for The Salmon of Doubt (ends 9th November; latest bid £3.19). Or what about four old ST Update magazines including the July 1987 issue with Bureaucracy on the cover and an interview with Douglas Adams inside (ends 10th November; no bids yet; starting price £4.95)? There’s also an Adams interview – by Neil Gaiman – in this September 1984 issue of Fantasy Empire (ends 11th November; no bids yet; starting price 50p) and another one – not by Neil – in this July 1987 issue of Sound on Sound (ends 16th November; no bids yet; starting price 50p).

6th November 2003
Dandy Warhols reject HHGG-inspired album title
Popular beat combo the Dandy Warhols have revealed in an interview for Living Abroad Magazine that their new album Welcome to the Monkey House was nearly named after the answer to life, the universe and everything. Guitarist Peter Holstrom told LAM that other possible titles had included That’s What It’s All About and We Are All Freaks, and that singer Courtney Taylor “also wanted to call it 10101, which, I guess, is the binary for 42 – which is the answer to life, the universe and everything if you read Douglas Adams.” Except that 42 in binary is of course 101010…

5th November 2003
Movie development hell chronology on-line
Nicolas Botti has added a chronology of the Hitchhiker’s Guide feature film’s quarter century of development hell to his HHGG movie site. It’s a work in progress, but a good start and he is open to suggestions, additions and corrections.

3rd November 2003
More biography reviews
Darren Rea has reviewed the new hardback of Don’t Panic for sci-fi-online.com. He rates it 9 out of 10 and calls it “an essential purchase for Adams' fans” – while correctly pointing out that the post-1988 additions “are the work of David K Dickson and MJ Simpson”.

Lucy Ramsey at Hodder reports further reviews in three listing magazines: the Welsh Buzz! (Wish You Were Here is “an enlightening and affectionate view of an astonishing man”), the Scottish The List (WYWH and Don’t Panic “approach Adams and his work from different angles, but both do so with style, no small amount of wit and a certain irreverence that their subject would no doubt have liked”) and The Leeds Guide.

3rd November 2003
Starburst, Dreamwatch review biographies
Wish You Were Here is reviewed in the current issue of Dreamwatch where Brian J Robb calls it: “Douglas Adams captured in all his facets, revealing the opinions of those who knew him.” Anthony Brown in the new Starburst points out that the book’s facts, “are often wrong, and enough to get a pedant fuming” but concedes that, ”the insight into Adams’ family and upbringing, and the portrait of the man himself, more than make up for this.” Brown also reviews the new hardback of Don’t Panic – “remains one of the best ‘companion’ books ever published” – and actually gives credit to myself and David K Dickson, which is much appreciated.

1st November 2003
Guardian reviews Don’t Panic
Thanks to Dop for pointing out this short review in yesterday’s Guardian. Like SFX, they seem completely unaware that this is just a hardback edition of last year’s paperback, and they don’t credit me or David K Dickson.

1st November 2003
Exclusive! Tertiary Phase is go! Full cast and recording details!
Following the not terribly accurate news in yesterday’s Daily Mail, I have finally been given the nod to reveal the news that I’ve been sitting on for the past few months – the Tertiary Phase is go! The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy will return to BBC Radio 4 next Spring in a six-part adaptation of Life, the Universe and Everything, to be followed by four-part adaptations of So Long and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless which will run as a single eight-week block in the autumn. The programme will be written and directed by Dirk Maggs – Douglas’ choice, as detailed in chapter 36 of my book – with John Langdon as script editor and Bruce Hyman and Helen Chattwell as producers. It will be an Above the Title production for the BBC.

Six surviving cast members will recreate their roles: Simon Jones, Geoffrey McGivern, Mark Wing-Davey, Susan Sheridan, Stephen Moore and the uncredited series announcer, John Marsh. William Franklyn will be the new voice of the book, and Richard Griffiths will play Slartibartfast. Chris Langham, who was Arthur on stage, will be Prak and other roles will be taken by Toby Longworth (Wowbagger), Roger Gregg (Eddie), Andy Taylor (Zem), Rupert Degas (Judiciary Pag LIVR), Frederick Treves (Hactar), Dominic Hawksley, Joanna Lumley(!) and Michael Fenton-Stevens, with cricket commentators Fred Trueman and Henry Blofeld as themselves. Paul ‘Wix’ Wickens and Philip Pope will provide the music. Best of all, Douglas Adams always wanted to play Agrajag himself, and since the BBC own the rights to the old Dove Audio unabridged readings – he will do!

The six episodes of the Tertiary Phase – H2G3 for short! – will be recorded in London this month, and will be broadcast at 6.30pm on Tuesdays from 17th February 2004; the ‘Quadrenary’ and ‘Quintessential’ Phases will be in the same slot from 14th September. Radio 4 is of course available over the net so folk outside the UK will be able to hear the show, which will be subsequently released on CD though no details are yet available. Exclusive in-depth coverage of the recording, including interviews with cast and crew, will be available to members of ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha in forthcoming issues of the club magazine, Mostly Harmless.