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The best part were the production notes at the end of each "fit."
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Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts
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The legendary BBC series did indeed push back the barriers of radio comedy, and in so doing so spawned records, books, a stage production, a TV series, a computer adventure game, even a towel, and attracted a deluge of letters from curious audiences throughout the world.
To satisfy this curiosity, here are the twelve original radio scripts – Hitch-Hiker as it was originally written, and exactly as it was broadcast on Radio 4 for the very first time. They include amendments and additions made during recordings, bits which were reluctantly cut for reasons of time, and notes on the writing and producing of the series by Douglas Adams and Geoffrey Perkins.
For those who have always longed to know why, who, how, when, where, and what its all about, these scripts are essential reading.
To satisfy this curiosity, here are the twelve original radio scripts – Hitch-Hiker as it was originally written, and exactly as it was broadcast on Radio 4 for the very first time. They include amendments and additions made during recordings, bits which were reluctantly cut for reasons of time, and notes on the writing and producing of the series by Douglas Adams and Geoffrey Perkins.
For those who have always longed to know why, who, how, when, where, and what its all about, these scripts are essential reading.
249 pages, Paperback
First published October 1,1985
This edition
- Format
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249 pages, Paperback
- Published
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October 10, 1986 by Pan Books
- ISBN
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- ASIN
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- Language
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English
About the author
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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Douglas Noel Adams was an English author, humourist, and screenwriter, best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (HHGTTG). Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy developed into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime. It was further developed into a television series, several stage plays, comics, a video game, and a 2005 feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.
Adams also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), and co-wrote The Meaning of Liff (1983), The Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990) and Last Chance to See (1990). He wrote two stories for the television series Doctor Who, co-wrote City of Death (1979), and served as script editor for its seventeenth season. He co-wrote the sketch "Patient Abuse" for the final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. A posthumous collection of his selected works, including the first publication of his final (unfinished) novel, was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002.
Adams was a self-proclaimed "radical atheist", an advocate for environmentalism and conservation, and a lover of fast cars, technological innovation, and the Apple Macintosh.
Douglas Noel Adams was an English author, humourist, and screenwriter, best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (HHGTTG). Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy developed into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime. It was further developed into a television series, several stage plays, comics, a video game, and a 2005 feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.
Adams also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), and co-wrote The Meaning of Liff (1983), The Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990) and Last Chance to See (1990). He wrote two stories for the television series Doctor Who, co-wrote City of Death (1979), and served as script editor for its seventeenth season. He co-wrote the sketch "Patient Abuse" for the final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. A posthumous collection of his selected works, including the first publication of his final (unfinished) novel, was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002.
Adams was a self-proclaimed "radical atheist", an advocate for environmentalism and conservation, and a lover of fast cars, technological innovation, and the Apple Macintosh.
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fun to see original scripts, how story developed and changed
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My fav
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There's something about reading these radio scripts which is actually better than listening to the recordings: they actually sound better – modern audio equipment is too good, when I read the scripts I can 'hear' the sound quality of 1978 when these were first broadcast! I can hear Simon Jones and Geoffrey McGivern as Arthur and Ford, Peter Jones as the Book, the Stephen Moore's wonderful portrayal of Marvin.
"Hitch-Hiker's", of course, started off as a radio programme. I was a student when the first two seasons were broadcast. Nothing else on this planet – with the possible exception of Debbie Harry appearing on "Top of the Pops" – could have got me out of the pub.
Lovely introduction by Geoffrey Perkins hinting at the chaotic excitement of those extraordinary radio shows. We've become used to images of TV shows and movies put together with seamless efficiency, suited execs sitting round in plush offices organising scripts and designing entertainments by committee … bottomless budgets, all the magic and resources of modern technology. They churn out anodyne, instantly forgettable product.
And then there's the originality, genius, flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants near chaos of "Hitch-Hiker's", held together by players who could inject character into scripts with only a few second's notice. You can 'hear' this in the scripts – the actors walking that tightrope, no safety nets, stepping into legend. Unforgettable performances – you read these scripts and you marvel at the quality of the people cobbling this show together with seconds to spare. Printed words which drip with excitement and adrenalin.
Genius is inspirational – it can have an infectious immediacy. It's not designed by committee or authorised by executive decision, it doesn't adhere to a rigid timetable. It's a very English production (I'm Scottish), very Southern English, very middle class, and the radio shows are in the highest tradition of English literature and theatre.
If you're a "Hitch-Hiker's" fan, you need these scripts. If you're new to the stories, read these scripts before you listen to the programmes … get a sense of the pressures the actors and sound crew were under producing the tales. Read this, listen to the broadcast, watch the TV versions, read the books – ignore the execrable movie.
As a bonus, the book offers a 1985 introduction by Adams himself … tending to undermine the apocryphal account of how he came up with the idea of the Guide … and how bored he must have been with people asking that bane of writers, "Where do you get your ideas from?" There's a lovely insight – "I wanted Hitch-Hiker's to sound like a rock album – he's already described the impact of "Sergeant Pepper".
And, of course, even this introduction was written before the PC colonised the world's desks, before laptops and mobile phones became ubiquitous, before the Internet and social media and Wikipedia … none of which, of course, have "Don't Panic" written all over them.
Listening to those first broadcasts in 1978, the idea of having a handheld device on which you could look up anything … I mean, life, the universe and everything … that idea was beyond science fiction. It was lunacy.
"The Original Radio Scripts" is like a time machine … it reaches into (at the time) an unimaginable future of World Wide Web … and back nearly half a century into nostalgia. It's as emblematic of 1970s England as the Beatles are of the 1960s.
Read … enjoy … marvel.
"Hitch-Hiker's", of course, started off as a radio programme. I was a student when the first two seasons were broadcast. Nothing else on this planet – with the possible exception of Debbie Harry appearing on "Top of the Pops" – could have got me out of the pub.
Lovely introduction by Geoffrey Perkins hinting at the chaotic excitement of those extraordinary radio shows. We've become used to images of TV shows and movies put together with seamless efficiency, suited execs sitting round in plush offices organising scripts and designing entertainments by committee … bottomless budgets, all the magic and resources of modern technology. They churn out anodyne, instantly forgettable product.
And then there's the originality, genius, flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants near chaos of "Hitch-Hiker's", held together by players who could inject character into scripts with only a few second's notice. You can 'hear' this in the scripts – the actors walking that tightrope, no safety nets, stepping into legend. Unforgettable performances – you read these scripts and you marvel at the quality of the people cobbling this show together with seconds to spare. Printed words which drip with excitement and adrenalin.
Genius is inspirational – it can have an infectious immediacy. It's not designed by committee or authorised by executive decision, it doesn't adhere to a rigid timetable. It's a very English production (I'm Scottish), very Southern English, very middle class, and the radio shows are in the highest tradition of English literature and theatre.
If you're a "Hitch-Hiker's" fan, you need these scripts. If you're new to the stories, read these scripts before you listen to the programmes … get a sense of the pressures the actors and sound crew were under producing the tales. Read this, listen to the broadcast, watch the TV versions, read the books – ignore the execrable movie.
As a bonus, the book offers a 1985 introduction by Adams himself … tending to undermine the apocryphal account of how he came up with the idea of the Guide … and how bored he must have been with people asking that bane of writers, "Where do you get your ideas from?" There's a lovely insight – "I wanted Hitch-Hiker's to sound like a rock album – he's already described the impact of "Sergeant Pepper".
And, of course, even this introduction was written before the PC colonised the world's desks, before laptops and mobile phones became ubiquitous, before the Internet and social media and Wikipedia … none of which, of course, have "Don't Panic" written all over them.
Listening to those first broadcasts in 1978, the idea of having a handheld device on which you could look up anything … I mean, life, the universe and everything … that idea was beyond science fiction. It was lunacy.
"The Original Radio Scripts" is like a time machine … it reaches into (at the time) an unimaginable future of World Wide Web … and back nearly half a century into nostalgia. It's as emblematic of 1970s England as the Beatles are of the 1960s.
Read … enjoy … marvel.
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25th Anniversary Edition of the scripts that launched a billion quips.
nMarch 1978 saw the first ever transmission of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" on BBC Radio 4; the beginning of a cult phenomenon. This 25th Anniversary edition of the scriptbook includes a previously unpublished Hitchhiker script, 'Sheila's Ear'; a new introduction by producer Geoffrey Perkins; and a Who's Who of all those involved in the radio series.
nAs well as all the new material, of course there are the twelve original radio scripts - Hitchhiker as it was written and exactly as it was broadcast for the very first time. They include amendments and additions made during recordings and original notes on the writing and producing of the series by Adams and Perkins.
nFor those who have always loved Adams, as well as for his new generation of fans, these scripts are essential reading - with the previously 'lost' script making this edition a must-have piece of Adams memorabilia.
n From the Inside Flap nThe original, complete, and totally unedited scripts from the now famous BBC "Hitchhiker Radio Show." Join Douglas Adams on an epic adventure in time and space--including some helpful advice on how to see the universe for less than 30 Altairian dollars a day.
n About the Author nDouglas Adams created all the various and contradictory manifestations of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: radio, novels, TV, computer game, stage adaptations, comic book and bath towel. He lectured and broadcast around the world and was a patron of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and Save the Rhino International. Douglas Adams was born in Cambridge, UK and lived with his wife and daughter in Islington, London, before moving to Santa Barbara, California, where he died suddenly in 2001. After Douglas died the movie of Hitchhiker moved out of development hell into the clear uplands of production, using much of Douglas' original script and ideas. Douglas shares the writing credit for the movie with Karey Kirkpatrick.
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I first fell in love with h2g2 through the books, then the movie, and finally these radio scripts--I'm too young to have ever heard the original radio series. I tried listening to the BBC "Quaternary" phase, but it just wasn't the same.
Reading the scripts can never fully approximate the feeling of a radio show, of course. From what I've read of it, the entire affair was zany. At times, apparently, the end of the episode wasn't even written before they began recording the beginning. This sort of thing is precisely the real-life craziness from which something like h2g2 can emerge and feel so appropriate.
Still, it was cool to read the radio scripts and see how the show differed from the books. The books will always be my favourite, partly because I am primarily a novel person, and partly because I read them first.
Reading the scripts can never fully approximate the feeling of a radio show, of course. From what I've read of it, the entire affair was zany. At times, apparently, the end of the episode wasn't even written before they began recording the beginning. This sort of thing is precisely the real-life craziness from which something like h2g2 can emerge and feel so appropriate.
Still, it was cool to read the radio scripts and see how the show differed from the books. The books will always be my favourite, partly because I am primarily a novel person, and partly because I read them first.
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MUST READ!!!! Better than the book! better than the show! better than the movie... this is what started it all and it's incredibly, crying your eyes out funny!
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I technically listened to these rather than read them, but I own the book; this script is hilarious and just what I expect from Adams.
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