Archive Douglas Adams/Hitchhiker’s Guide news for March 2004

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30th March 2004
More crew members add themselves to IMDB
Four more members of the HHGG movie crew have identified themselves by adding the title to their IMDB listings: ‘accountant’ Rob Meisenholder, ‘production controller’ Gary Gillingham (who seems to be connected with Meisenholder as they share recent credits such as Hellboy and Shanghai Knights), ‘location finder’ Jamie Lengyel and ‘script researcher’ Raffi Paloulian – whose job it is to check that the bit in the end credits about ‘no similarity to actual firms or persons living or dead’ is actually true. Presumably he is in talks with famous Islington estate agents Hotblack Desiato...

Meanwhile a poster on alt.fan.douglas-adams says that an actress friend of his has been cast as an alien in the movie and will be shooting on location on Carnaby Street(!) in London in June/July.

28th March 2004
Douglas Adams Continuum adds movie page
The Douglas Adams Continuum (prop. The Duke of Dunstable) now has a page dedicated to the HHGG movie.

25th March 2004
Bill Nighy finally confirmed for movie
Ten weeks after he was first linked with the Hitchhiker’s Guide, Bill Nighy has finally been confirmed as Slartibartfast. It was back on 12th January that he told the BBCi Films site that he would be playing the role, but at that time his contract wasn’t actually signed. Shortly afterwards he won both a BAFTA and the Peter Sellers Award for Comedy, which rather raised his standing in the industry. However the news has just come through that Nighy is finally 100% on board, making him the sixth confirmed member of the cast. He will be seen shortly in Shaun of the Dead, and there are unconfirmed rumours (from fairly credible sources) that he actually turned down the lead role in Doctor Who in favour of the Magrathean.

25th March 2004
Douglas Adams’ brother comments on movie sets
Several members of Douglas Adams’ family were given a tour of the partially constructed film sets at Elstree Studios on 12th March. Now his (half-)brother James Thrift has told Nicolas Botti what their reaction was. “We all loved it, the ideas, the casting, the whole project and those working on it seem to have a very Douglas feel to them,” he says on Nicolas’ HHGG movie fan-site. “Everyone seems so determined to create something he would have loved.”

23rd March 2004
Douglas Adams’ old computer sold on eBay!
This page on a site devoted to old Apple Mac hardware and software has the truly remarkable story of how a IIfx bought on eBay in late 2003 turned out to be the former property of Douglas Adams, with two pieces of unpublished material still on the hard drive. (Thanks to the Duke of Dunstable for alerting me to this.)

19th March 2004
Hitchhiker shortlisted for another award
The nominees for this year’s SFX Reader Awards have been announced and I am naturally delighted that Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams has made it onto the short list for Best Non-Fiction. It is up against Ray Harryhausen’s autobiography, two books on Lord of the Rings and a Buffy the Vampire Slayer tie-in. The winners will be announced at SFX: The Event on 5th June.

19th March 2004
Robbie Stamp discusses casting in SFX
The April issue of SFX includes a short piece (written by me) wherein Robbie Stamp comments on the casting decisions behind the five main leads in the movie. “All the actors are familiar with Hitchhiker’s Guide to varying degrees,” he says. “They are all very excited to be cast and they are aware of how much these characters mean to people and the responsibility that gives them.”

19th March 2004
John McLaren reading WYWH
In today’s Daily Mail, the subject of the ‘What Book?’ column is novelist John McLaren who reveals that he is currently reading and enjoying Nick Webb’s Wish You Were Here – curiously despite never having watched, listened to or read Hitchhiker’s Guide. Nick and John are both represented by the Curtis Brown literary agency so perhaps he picked up a copy there…

17th March 2004
Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture date change
Next year’s Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture has been moved from its traditional date of 11th March (Douglas’ birthday) to Thursday 10th March. This is because the Royal Institution was already booked on the Friday and it was decided that a change of date was better than a change of venue. The lecture will be delivered by psychologist Steven Pinker. Tickets will go on sale much nearer the date.

16th March 2004
Diary page added
From today, Magrathea has a diary page, listing forthcoming Douglas Adams and Hitchhiker’s Guide events: broadcasts, publications, talks etc. If you know of something that should be added (not just in the UK), then e-mail me.

15th March 2004
HHGG movie cinematographer, editor named
Two more of the crew of the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie have added themselves to the IMDB listing. Director of photography Igor Jadue-Lillo has worked extensively with the Hammer and Tongs boys in the past on pop videos and commercials. Editor Niven Howie has a terrific CV which includes British horror movies The Hole, Dr Sleep (aka Hypnotic aka Close Your Eyes) and Long Time Dead, Julien Temple’s cracking Coleridge biopic Pandaemonium, rock’n’roll comedy Still Crazy (starring Bill Nighy) and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which won the BAFTA for Best Editing. Most recently, he has been cutting together the remake of Dawn of the Dead – freeow!

15th March 2004
Fan-created Dirk Gently comic on-line
A chap called Ray Friesen has done an unofficial comic-book adaptation of the first few chapters of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency which can be viewed on-line at www.dirk-gently.com.

13th March 2004
South Bank Show screening in Bradford in May
The edition of LWT’s long-running arts programme The South Bank Show which featured Douglas Adams is to receive a rare screening at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television on 23rd May. Details of the event are sketchy at the moment, but it will also include a screening of one, as-yet-unchosen episode of the Hitchhiker’s Guide TV series as well as a talk and signing by myself.

13th March 2004
Nighy, Freeman – more interviews lined up
Bill Nighy is one of the guests on Parkinson this evening (9pm, BBC 1) and picks his favourite records on Desert Island Discs tomorrow (11.15am, BBC Radio 4, repeated at 9am next Friday). Meanwhile, Martin Freeman will be on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross this week (10.40pm, BBC 1, repeated late on Saturday night).

13th March 2004
Memorial lecture auction result, Pinker lined up for 2005
The second Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture was presented by polar explorer Robert Swan on Thursday night and the evening included a charity auction in aid of Save the Rhino International and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Approximately £6,000 was raised including £400 for a fully signed script from episode four of the Tertiary Phase and £850 for a visit to the set of the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie. Psychologist Steven Pinker is apparently lined up to give the lecture next year, with Mark Carwardine, co-author of Last Chance to See, rumoured as a possibility for 2006.

12th March 2004
New publication dates, Tertiary Phase scriptbook possibility
Thanks to Dave Haddock for scouring Amazon for forthcoming editions of various books. Harmony Books plan to publish a 25th anniversary edition of the first Hitchhiker’s novel on 3rd August for $13.95 ($11.16 from Amazon.com, £6.89 from Amazon.co.uk). This is just a facsimile of the original US hardback edition but will be followed on 19th October by the Deluxe 25th Anniversary Edition, exclusively announced on this site on 14th January. This will cost $35 but Amazon.com have it for $24.50 and Amazon.co.uk have it for £17.28.

Dave has also located the UK paperback of Wish You Were Here scheduled for 5th July (cover price £7.99, Amazon.co.uk price £6.39) although there is still no sign of a US edition. Most intriguing of all is The Hitchhiker Radio Scripts 2, scheduled for UK publication by Pan on 6th May 2005. Presumably this will be the scripts of the Tertiary Phase although there is no price quoted yet and its publication will be dependent on the series actually having been broadcast by then!

12th March 2004
Bishop quotes Hitchhiker’s Guide
On this morning’s edition of the Sarah Kennedy show on BBC Radio 2, the daily ‘Pause for Thought’ was delivered by the Right Reverend Nick Baines, Bishop of Croydon. Dop reports that his text included several references to Hitchhiker’s Guide!

12th March 2004
Analog reviews Don’t Panic
The May issue of Analog is now on sale, including in Tom Easton’s review column a few paragraphs on the hardback edition of Don’t Panic. “It was time to bring the tale up to date,” says Easton, “and so Gaiman has done with great lucidity and even wit.” Which is of course completely untrue as all the book’s updates are by David K Dickson and myself.

9th March 2004
Signed Shada script on eBay
From the same source as the previously mentioned signed ‘City of Death’ script (currently standing at 160 quid and due to finish tomorrow) comes another gem. All six rehearsal scripts of ‘Shada’, the first one signed by Douglas Adams, producer John Nathan-Turner and Tom Baker. Bidding ends on the 19th.

9th March 2004
Two more movie names
A couple more people have added themselves to the IMDB listing for the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie, now less than six weeks from production. Ben Pugh is listed as a ‘production assistant’ (a runner, basically) and Eve Petcher lists herself as ‘assistant co-ordinator’, whatever that involves. Good luck to both – it’s a terrific credit to have on your CV.

9th March 2004
Choice magazine reviews Hitchhiker
The latest review of Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams is in Choice magazine, which observes that, “This sympathetic, yet by no means hagiographic portrait charts the development of Douglas Adams … It also punctures several myths, most put about by the impish Adams himself.”

7th March 2004
Sunday Times reviews Hitchhiker
Today’s Sunday Times includes a short review of the paperback edition of Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams. “Simpson’s readable and balanced biography is primarily concerned with factual accuracy, sometimes to the point of pedantry,” says reviewer Sam Gilpin, “and he is not afraid to contradict Adams’s own myths about his life.”

6th March 2004
Asylum confirmed as FX house for movie
A posting by Nick Goldsmith yesterday on the Hammer & Tongs website is the first official confirmation that Asylum will be providing visual effects for the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie, alongside the digital effects of Cinesite and the prosthetic effects of Henson’s. Asylum have worked on masses of adverts and also created the current BBC 2 idents.

5th March 2004
Lalla Ward remembers Douglas Adams in DWM interview
Issue 341 of Doctor Who Magazine (now on sale) includes the second part of a lengthy interview, by Benjamin Cook, with actress Lalla ‘Romana’ Ward who recalls Douglas Adams at some length: “Endlessly energetic, witty, incredibly bright, effortlessly funny and delightful and, above all, in every way you can imagine, generous – generous with his time, generous with his friends, generous with his intelligence, generous in every conceivable way.” Ward talks about meeting Richard Dawkins, now her husband, at Douglas’ 40th birthday party, and also the shock of learning that Douglas had died, as well as commenting on last year’s remake of ‘Shada’.

4th March 2004
Martin Freeman gives little away in Five Live interview
Hitchhiker’s Guide mega-fan Simon Mayo interviewed Martin Freeman this afternoon on BBC Five Live and, true to form, spent most of the time discussing HHGG. The only new information revealed was confirmation that Freeman’s costume as Arthur Dent will be “jammies and dressing gown.” The 15-minute interview, which also covers The Office, Hardware and Love Actually, can be heard here either as part of the whole show or separately. A transcript of the part about Hitchhiker’s Guide will be published in the next issue of Mostly Harmless.

4th March 2004
Martin Freeman interview on Five Live this afternoon
Thanks to Jerry for spotting that Martin Freeman will be interviewed by Simon Mayo on BBC Radio Five Live this afternoon. Mayo is known to be a huge fan of Hitchhiker’s Guide, so the conversation is bound to include the film (as well as the new series of Hardware, which is the real reason why Freeman is doing the interview rounds). The show is on from 1pm until 4pm with the interview at 2pm. Like all BBC stations, Five Live is also available over the web.

3rd March 2004
Salmon of Doubt editor assigned to De Luxe HHGG edition
The forthcoming ‘25th Anniversary De Luxe Edition’ of Hitchhiker’s Guide which is in development at Harmony Books has a new editor. Peter Guzzardi was Douglas Adams’ editor in New York throughout the 1990s and was responsible for compiling The Salmon of Doubt. The book is scheduled for publication later this year.

3rd March 2004
Quadrenary Phase on hold
Word reaches me that, while negotiations continue around a broadcast date for the Tertiary Phase of HHGG, work on the Quadrenary and Quintessential Phases – the eight-part adaptation of books four and five – has been put on hold. The shows were originally scheduled for recording in April and broadcast in September but until the Tertiary Phase is sorted out there seems little point in pressing ahead.

In the meantime, the BBC Cult site has managed to get the following statement out of BBC Publicity: “Whilst we are extremely keen to see Hitchhiker return to Radio 4, there are unfortunately some rights issues that remain to be resolved and until they are, we will not be able to release any details, including transmission dates.”

2nd March 2004
Douglas Adams at the BBC – exclusive details
At last, approximately a year after it was produced, the 3-CD set Douglas Adams at the BBC has been confirmed as available for pre-order on the BBC shop website. The release date is given as 6th September 2004, more than a year after it was originally scheduled, and the price is an extremely reasonable £12.99. ‘DNA@BBC’ (as it is convenient to call it) was an idea which I originally proposed to BBC Worldwide in late 2002 as a possible way of marking the 25th anniversary of Hitchhiker’s in March 2003 without simply re-releasing the radio series in new packaging.

The project was overseen by a lady called Carol Smith who was a former assistant to Douglas’ friend, radio producer Jonathan James-Moore. It was brilliantly researched and written by Chris Emmett of Burkiss Way and News Huddlines fame. Simon Jones recorded the linking narration and the producer was Dirk Maggs, who has since gone on to make the Tertiary Phase of course.

DNA@BBC is literally an A to Z of Douglas Adams’ career at the BBC, including some amazingly rare recordings which have not been heard for thirty years or more. Among the gems on offer are: all three of Douglas’ Burkiss Way sketches including ‘Kamikaze’; extracts from Last Chance to See; ‘Sheila’s Ear’, the infamous ‘lost’ mini-episode of Hitchhiker’s Guide; the ‘Paranoid Society’ sketch from the BBC2 broadcast of the Footlights revue Chox; Douglas singing on the John Dunn show; Douglas on Quote...Unquote; and a slew of other appearances, writing credits and interviews. Also included is So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, the Radio 4 tribute programme to Douglas from September 2001.

The full story behind this must-have release, together with a track-by-track breakdown of the contents, will be in the next issue of Mostly Harmless.

2nd March 2004
Martin Freeman interviewed
Martin Freeman is interviewed on the back page of next week’s Radio Times to tie in with the second series of Hardware. Here’s the bit about HHGG:
You’ve been cast as Arthur Dent in a forthcoming movie of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Who else is confirmed? “Bill Nighy is someone they would love to be in it, and I think he’s up for it. Mos Def plays Ford Prefect, which I’m quite excited about because apparently he’s brilliant. Also Sam Rockwell.”
Have you established the answer to life, the universe and everything yet? “It’s 42.”
So typical deep, incisive questioning from RT there. But note that Bill Nighy is still not confirmed, despite what you may have read elsewhere. Martin was also interviewed recently in The Observer, where he said of HHGG: “We had the books at home when I was a kid and I’d always liked it without being mental about it, which I think is probably the best way to approach the film, because it means I’m not deferring to it too much. I think it’s a good story rather than the thing I’ve been waiting all my life to play.”

2nd March 2004
Signed City of Death script on eBay
Although I no longer bother with the weekly eBaywatch updates I used to post, this was brought to my attention today and deserves a quick plug. It’s an early draft of Douglas Adams’ Doctor Who story ‘City of Death’ (or ‘The Curse of the Sephiroph’ as it was known at this stage), an original, hand-annotated typescript previously owned by producer Graham Williams, who co-wrote it with Douglas under the house pseudonym ‘David Agnew.’ And it has been, many years later, signed by Douglas, making it even more of a collector’s item. Bidding ends on 11th March; starting price is a kibblesworth under ten quid but the reserve will be a wee bit more than that.