by Neil Gaiman
“But we know only too well by now that there aren’t that many purists amongst Douglas’s fans—we’re used to having the continuity pulled out from underneath our feet.
Dirk Maggs, when he came to adapt the books for audio with John Langdon, kept the Electric Monk* but still struggled to make the narrative fit the new medium. “It was clear that Douglas was experimenting very much with the whole idea of a detective as someone who works on linear grounds, someone who deduces solutions using a logical set of principles and clues,” he explains. “Dirk Gently goes about all that very differently. It’s terribly clever but it’s also so complex—the lead character doesn’t even appear until about a third of the way in!”
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy novel—showing its roots in radio—came pre-loaded with a narrator for all those tricky-to-describe bits, but Dirk Gently had no such device. “There was a lot of talk about having a narrator figure,” Dirk* admits. “At one time I even suggested we have Dirk reading his detective notes to Janice for dictation. That seemed like a way we could have a narrative voice to get us through some of the trickier stuff. But then I quickly realized that Dirk would have to be speaking from some point in the future, where he would know something the audience didn’t but was deliberately withholding it. I thought that ran the risk of making Dirk a smart alec, someone who wasn’t going to give you information that would save you half an hour of your listening time. We were just going to have to do it as if we were on the journey to solve the case with him. So, you’re faced with this nightmare of trying to tell what is effectively back-story all the way up to episode four!
“One bit of help I had was Douglas’s hard drive. I had all his folders and documents, a huge amount of stuff—a lot of it double backed up so I ended up reading the same thing twice. Douglas had a habit of trying out new bits of software; it wasn’t enough to have Pages or Word, he’d also have Nisus Writer, ClarisWorks, Mariner-Write… He’d even try it in Chinese sometimes just to see how it would work! So I was always fighting against this sea of duplicated documents where he’d just changed the tense of one verb… or files I couldn’t even open as the software that used them had long since vanished. But one interesting thing that came up was a document saying ‘Dirk Gently film’. It was in one of those bizarre formats but I managed to decode it and it was the first three pages of a film script, starting with Dirk on the rooftop watching Richard Macduff break into Susan’s flat. That helped a lot, that endorsement to really shake things up. We pretty much used the lines Douglas wrote for those three pages, although we did have some preamble before it, setting up Gordon Way and getting him shot.”
Casting opened up the production too with Harry Enfield playing Gently, Andrew Sachs as Chronotis* and Billy Boyd (fresh from his stint in the Lord of the Rings movies as ‘Pippin’ Took) taking on the role of Richard Macduff.
“I was very pleased with Billy,” says Dirk, “because Douglas did tend to write characters that came from Islington dinner parties and it was easy to imagine Richard Macduff as a floppy-haired Hugh Grant type. For the radio you need to broaden out the canvas of voices and I loved the fact that our Richard was a Scotsman, Billy with his wonderful Glaswegian accent… our Macduff was a lad who had made it to Cambridge on his own merits. Some people think Douglas’s writing is elitist and I really don’t think he ever intended it as such, so it’s nice to be able to broaden out the story in translation.”
The first series began broadcasting on 3rd October 2007, once again in Radio 4’s 6.30pm comedy slot. Was the slot going to be an issue for Maggs again?
“When we came to do the second series the BBC asked us to make it funnier and ensure it was always clear what was going on… I didn’t argue at all with it being funnier but ‘Always make it clear what’s going on’?… That rather translates as ‘Make it a detective story without the mystery’!”
Dirk would later describe the second series as being “in the Columbo style” as it was perfectly obvious to the audience what was going on from the very beginning. “The whole business of the Norse gods was made absolutely clear from the word go and reinforced at every turn. There’s quite a lot of belt and braces writing where people keep telling each other why they’re there. It’s horribly on the nose dialogue, but it was asked for by the Powers That Be so that’s what they got!
“That aside, I had a free hand to adapt The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul and it was a much easier proposition with a plot that moves forward from the start rather than continually referring back. So, of the two, it’s certainly the one I’m most happy with.”
Both series were released in expanded form on CD and the third, and presumably final, series is in development now. Unfortunately, due to other working commitments—running his own production company, Perfectly Normal Productions, creates lots of other commitments—Maggs will not be involved this time, instead comedy writer Kim Fuller is on script duties. It is hard not to feel saddened at Maggs’ absence though, his work having been such an, effective and exciting continuation of Douglas’s.
Dirk Maggs: a Frood who definitely knows where his towel is.
* The third being The Salmon of Doubt, which is, of course, pushing it rather as it was never finished and Douglas had made it clear that he intended Dirk Gently to be removed from the book as he saw it more as a Hitchhiker’s novel.
** Goss went on to run the BBC’s Doctor Who website, producing a number of Doctor Who animations (including Shada). He is a writer these days but also a very nice man, so buy him a drink if you ever accidentally trip over him lying in a pub doorway.
*** David grew up to be a movie producer. Moving on...
* Horses are cheap on radio.
* Maggs that is... This chapter could start getting terribly confusing.
* Whereas in Shada, which as we know bears more than a passing resemblance to Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Sachs voiced the villain of the piece, enthusiastically trying to kill Chronotis. An actor’s life often repeats itself...
37
HITCHHIKING TOWARDS THE FUTURE
The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying, “And another thing…” twenty minutes after admitting he’s lost the argument.
— Excerpt from So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, the origin of the sixth novel’s title.
October 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of the first Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy novel and, to celebrate, a brand new volume in the saga is being produced. And Another Thing…, the sixth in the Increasingly Giving Up on the Whole Idea of Being the Hitchhiker’s Trilogy, is obviously not written by Douglas Adams—even for a writer so skilled at late delivery, this would be pushing it. The book has been written by Eoin* Colfer, an Irish writer famous for his children’s fiction, most particularly the Artemis Fowl series.
Colfer was approached by Penguin Books after being given the approval of Jane Belson, Douglas’s widow. A fan of the Hitchhiker’s books since his school days, he was initially distinctly sceptical about the idea, admitting in the press announcement that, “My first reaction was semi-outrage that anyone should be allowed to tamper with this incredible series…” Talking later, at the large sci-fi convention Eastercon, he explained that having had the idea put into his head—particularly given the complexities of resolving Mostly Harmless’s apocalyptic ending—it had become increasingly difficult to turn it down. Eventually, he says, “the only reason I could think of not to do it is that other people wouldn’t want me to do it. And that’s not enough of a reason.” Colfer has also subsequently commented on the Penguin Books website that, “Being given the chance to write this book is like suddenly being offered the superpower of your choice,” so his attitude to the project has certainly turned around.
At Eastercon Colfer also recalled meeting James Thrift, Douglas’s half brother, after he had delivered the novel a month ahead of schedule. “You’re too short and too prompt,”
Thrift told him, and Colfer now accepts he’s broken all the Hitchhiker’s taboos in this regard.
Though details of the plot of And Another Thing… are being kept firmly under wraps at this time, Jane Belson’s official comments on the subject have mentioned transporting “Arthur, Zaphod and Marvin to pastures new”, so we can at least expect to get reacquainted with those three characters. The cover has also been released, and features a picture of a Viking longboat space ship that, along with Colfer’s comment—and possibly hint—“For years I have been finishing this incredible story in my head and now I have the opportunity to do it in the real world. It is a gift from the gods. So, thank you Thor and Odin,” has triggered lively speculation about an appearance from the Norse gods, Thor having appeared in Life, the Universe and Everything. The (possible) Norse connection even raises the intriguing prospect of a Dirk Gently cameo, as Thor and Odin also turn up in The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.
So, though there can be no doubt that a lot of people still question the idea of allowing someone else to write a Hitchhiker’s book, the signs are good. Colfer is unquestionably a fine writer with an excellent sense of humour, and I for one am very much looking forward to seeing what And Another Thing… offers.
In another instance of someone bravely stepping into Douglas Adams’s large and rather daunting shoes, exactly twenty years after the original odyssey, Mark Carwardine has embarked on a second Last Chance to See planetary trek, this time accompanied (for a change) by a tall, startlingly intelligent technophile, Stephen Fry*. A BBC TV series following the experiences of Carwardine and Fry, as they see what has become of the animals featured in the original radio series over the past two decades and discover what has affected their fortunes, will air around the same time as the Hitchhiker’s 30th anniversary celebrations, and will be accompanied by another book, Last Chance to See—Return.
The 30th anniversary also brings another publication, Neil Gaiman’s biography of Douglas Adams, Don’t Panic, updated once more, just like that most remarkable Guide itself.**
Douglas just doesn’t go away. The years since his passing have been packed with celebration and reinvention, some of it great, some of it less so, but that’s fine, that’s how these things work. There has been much he would have been immensely proud to see (and hear), and one cannot help but be saddened by the fact that he is unable to. Ultimately, though, he has achieved the only immortality he would have wished for and we must count ourselves lucky to have enjoyed his company, even for too brief a time, and still enjoy his legacy.
So long Douglas and thanks for all the words.
* Pronounced “Owen”, so stop making that noise like cars flashing past you at a Grand Prix.
* A close friend of Douglas, Stephen Fry lived in Douglas’s house during the year Douglas spent travelling the world with Mark. During that time, Stephen recalls “taking urgent phone calls to send maps and lenses to faraway places.”
** Although one hopes you’ve found this tome slightly more reliable.
APPENDIX I
HITCHHIKER’S - THE ORIGINAL SYNOPSIS
APPENDIX II
THE VARIANT TEXTS OF HITCHHIKER’S: WHAT HAPPENS WHERE AND WHY
The Primary Phase (First Radio Series)
1) Arthur Dent wakes up to find his house is about to be knocked down. Ford Prefect takes him to the pub. Just before the Earth is destroyed, they hitchhike their way onto one of the spaceships of the Vogon Destructor Fleet. The Vogon Captain throws them out of the airlock, having read them some poetry.
2) They are rescued by the starship Heart of Gold, piloted by Zaphod Beeblebrox and Trillian, inhabited by Marvin the Paranoid Android, Eddie the ship’s computer and a number of Doors.
3) Arriving in orbit around the legendary planet of Magrathea, they are fired on by an automatic defence system, resulting in the bruising of someone’s upper arm and the creation and demise of a bowl of petunias and a sperm whale. Exploring Magrathea reveals Slartibartfast, a planetary designer who is very keen on fjords, and is about to design the Earth Mark II.
4) Arthur discovers that white mice really ran the Earth as an experiment in behavioural psychology set up by the computer Deep Thought, to find the Question to the Great Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything (the Answer being 42). Shooty and Bang Bang, two enlightened and liberal cops, interrupt a meeting with the Mice, who want Trillian and Arthur to find the Question for them. The cops blow up a computer bank behind which our heroes are hiding.
5) The fearless four find themselves in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe… actually a far-future Magrathea. Marvin has been parking cars there. Abandoning Arthur’s Pears Gallumbit they steal a small black spaceship, which turns out to belong to an Admiral of the Fleet and drops them in the vanguard of a major intergalactic war.
6) In which it is revealed that Arthur Dent’s only brother was nibbled to death by an Okapi. The chair in the ship they are in is actually one of the Haggunenons of Vicissitus Three, a shape-shifting race who evolve several times over lunch. Arthur and Ford escape in a hyperspace capsule, while the others are eaten by the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (aka the Haggunenon Admiral). Arthur and Ford, having materialised inside the hold of the Golgafrincham ‘B’ Ark, crash land on Earth two million years before the Vogons destroy it. An experiment with Scrabble shows that the Question is, or might be, “What do you get if you multiply six by nine?”
Christmas Special Episode
7) Zaphod Beeblebrox is picked up by a freighter taking copies of Playbeing to Ursa Minor Beta (the Haggunenon having evolved into an escape capsule). Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect get drunk on Old Earth and start seeing a spaceship. Zaphod tries to see Zarniwoop, editor of the Guide. He meets Roosta as the building is attacked by Frogstar fighters: while Marvin saves the day, the building is kidnapped and taken to the Frogstar…
The Secondary Phase (Second Radio Series)
8) Zaphod discovers that he is going to be fed to the Total Perspective Vortex. Zaphod, despite two hangovers, rescues Ford and Arthur, having discovered their fossilised towel. Zaphod (still on board the Frogstar-snatched building) goes to a robot disco, lands on the Frogstar, is fed to the Total Perspective Vortex, and eats some fairy cake.
9) On board the Heart of Gold, Zaphod, Ford and Arthur find themselves under attack from the Vogon Fleet, under orders from Gag Halfrunt, Zaphod’s psychiatrist. Arthur flings away a cup of Nutrimatic drink, and the computer’s circuits occupy themselves with the problem of why Arthur likes tea. A séance summons Zaphod’s great-grandfather, who tells him to find the person really running the universe, and rescues them.
10) Finding themselves in a cave on the planet Brontitall, they soon find themselves falling through the air thirteen miles above the ground. Arthur is rescued by a bird, and discovers that he has fallen from the cup in the Statue of Arthur Dent Flinging the Nutrimatic Cup. Taken to the bird colony which lives in his car, he is told by a Wise Old Bird the significance of the statue. ‘Belgium’ is discovered to be a very rude word indeed. Ford and Zaphod land on a passing bird. Arthur discovers the planet to be the property of the Dolmansaxlil Corporation, and is attacked by limping footwarriors, then rescued by a Lintilla, a bright and sexy girl archaeologist.
11) Ford and Zaphod reach the ground relatively safely. Arthur discovers that the Lintilla he met is one of three identical Lintillas, or rather one of 578,000,000,000 Lintillas, due to problems with a cloning machine. Hig Hurtenflurst of the Dolmansaxlil Corporation threatens Arthur and the Lintillas with revocation, then shows them what happened to Brontitall; a Shoe Shop Intensifier Ray caused the planet’s inhabitants to build shoe shops and sell shoes. Marvin, who was not rescued by a bird, falls to the ground creating a hole, but gets out and rescues Arthur and a Lintilla. Meanwhile, Zaphod and Ford find a derelict space port and a curious ship…
12) Poodoo shows up with a priest and three Allitnils, while Arthur and the Lintillas are under attack. The Allitnils and two Lintillas fall in lov
e, are married, kiss and explode. Zaphod and Ford discover a spaceship full of people going nowhere, and also Zarniwoop. Arthur kills the third Allitnil (an anticlone) and sets off with Marvin and a Lintilla. Zarniwoop explains some of the plot to Zaphod (Ford is getting drunk and isn’t listening). They all go and visit the Man in the Shack, who runs the universe. He reveals that Zaphod was in collusion with the consortium of psychiatrists who ordered the Earth destroyed in order to prevent the Question from coming out. In a huff, Arthur takes the Heart of Gold, and leaves with a Lintilla and Marvin, abandoning Zaphod, Ford and Zarniwoop on the Man in the Shack’s planet…
The Tertiary Phase (Third Radio Series)
1) Arthur and Ford are trapped on prehistoric Earth—thus ignoring the end of the Secondary Phase. Arthur hasn’t seen Ford for four years but the Betelgeusian reappears, having discovered “Eddies in the Space-Time Wash”. Pursuing—and finally leaping on—an errant Chesterfield sofa that has been thrown back in time they ride the temporally disenfranchised lump of soft-furnishing to wherever it may lead.
On the Heart of Gold Zaphod is depressed and Trillian is sick of looking after him, she teleports “the hell out of Zaphod Beeblebrox’s life.” Marvin is stranded on Squornshellous Zeta, plagued by talking mattresses and the fact that his false leg* is stuck in the mud.
2) Arthur and Ford meet Slartibartfast at Lord’s Cricket Ground (where the sofa dumps them). They witness a spaceship filled with Krikkit Robots turn up and steal the ashes before giving chase in Slartibartfast’s ship. Marvin is also besieged by Krikkit Robots who appear above the swamp and kidnap first his false leg and then the rest of him.
3) We learn a lot of things about Bistromathics, the Krikkit Wars, bubbles of Slo-Time and how you play Brockian Ultra Cricket. Zaphod finds the Heart of Gold invaded by Krikkit Robots. He also finds they are only too happy to shoot him.