ANNOUNCER: For listeners on Planet Earth, up-to-date weather information is available on your local or national Meteorological Office website – or simply check the travel itinerary on www.mckenna’s-all-weather-haulage.com.
FOOTNOTES
Of Men, Mice and Magratheans In the time between my composing these notes and your reading them, these last eight episodes will have been through fine editing and some pruning will have occurred. It is always interesting to see what material can be cut once an episode is recorded. Often one has been too cautious in trying to re-establish vital backstory for new listeners or latecomers, and it is only when listening to an assembly of scenes performed by the cast that whole passages of exposition are revealed as surplus to requirements. On the other hand, whole unwritten sequences can suddenly make their absence felt, and these can appear through judicious editing of out-takes and sound effects (Zaphod stealing the Heart of Gold in the Tertiary Phase Episode One, for example).
Thus these scripts will differ here and there from the fullest possible audio versions of these episodes (i.e. those on CD, cassette and DVD-A); it’s just the business of trying to make these programmes as entertaining and as true to the spirit of Douglas’s vision as they possibly can be.
This opening passage also pushes through plot points which the book takes more time over than we have to spare. The idea of Arthur and Fenchurch going back to Taunton to collect the Babel fish via a lift from Rob McKenna is not in the book, neither is the appearance of Tricia McMillan on the radio in the lorry, nor does the arrival of the saucer which brought Ford to Earth happen so early. The need to telescope events and narratives is vital, also to introduce plot points, like Tricia, which Douglas had not invented when he wrote this book but which we will need to pick up and run with in the Mostly Harmless episodes.
Newsreaders One of the most instantly gratifying parts of recording this episode was having Peter Donaldson and Charlotte Green ‘play themselves’ as BBC Radio 4 newsreaders. They needed no direction, for a start. Their presence gave an immediate feeling of verisimilitude (or as we termed it, ‘almostsimilitude’) to the proceedings. Peter is always completely relaxed off duty and very funny; and Simon Jones was particularly thrilled to witness Charlotte reading the news in her distinctive husky tones. Charlotte and I trained as BBC studio managers together in the late seventies, when we had no idea where we would end up, and it is fun to compare that innocent time with the legions of people who now picture her as a sexy, authoritative BBC Radio news dominatrix. Which of course she is.
Arthur and Ford reunited At last, a chance to have the double act together again. This was a technically experimental scene as Paul Deeley rigged two stereo pairs of microphones to capture events simultaneously in the ‘living room’ and ‘kitchen’ of Arthur’s house, intending to put these ‘back to back’ for listeners in surround sound, so that they could hear what was going on as the action moved from room to room (or, indeed, happened in both rooms at once). This would become a feature of events in Mostly Harmless.
The World at One Events surrounding the arrival of the robot in the giant flying saucer and its subsequent trip to Bournemouth are dealt with at some length in the novel, and, if directly dramatized, would have required almost half an episode to relate. So a short cut was necessary, and having used BBC Radio as a convenient tool for exposition earlier in this episode it made sense to go back to source.
Nick Clarke’s calm unflappable presence is a mainstay of Radio 4’s weekday lunchtime current affairs briefing, The World at One, so it was not too huge a leap to suppose a special edition from a vantage point overlooking the flying saucer which has flattened Knightsbridge. As an expert witness there could be none better than Sir Patrick Moore, who, along with Nick, is a terrific sport. Without sending themselves up, they delivered slightly exaggerated versions of their public personas with great sincerity. Patrick was recorded at his home in Selsey, East Sussex, interrupted by the comings and goings of cats and astronomers and cups of tea and, finally, the arrival of Brian May to discuss a book collaboration. I had the pleasure of first introducing Brian to Patrick because of their shared astronomical interests (musically they differ a bit), and I was hoping there’d be a chance to give Brian a quick cameo too, but in the event the ‘Rock Star by the Pool’ in the book’s Wonko sequence was edited out due to lack of time. So another promising radio acting career nipped in the bud there . . .
Arthur and Ford discuss the mice This is a much-extended version of a gently cryptic scene in the book where Ford, it appears, has only returned to Earth at all in order to catch up on a few classic films he missed the first time around.
Now that we were heading firmly towards the turbulent plotlines of Mostly Harmless, this was a vital opportunity to get Ford and Arthur talking things over – as old, long-parted friends might – trying to find some threads of logic in what has taken place so far in the story. And not just the story from the Tertiary Phase – the story from the beginning.
Originally this was Ford’s scene, but while I was writing it one of those slightly spooky things happened and Arthur just took over. He was always the interrogative half of the pair, but this time his questions were rhetorical and, while Ford normally acted as a foil to them, Arthur has now grown in experience and is reasoning out what is going on. In fact the balance of power has shifted in the relationship to such an extent that Arthur is now Ford’s equal in matters of Life, the Universe and Everything, even the subject of girls’ chests.
The ensuing discussion between them clashes with Douglas’s avoidance of too much explanation, but it was vitally necessary to help the listener follow the increasingly complex plot into the Quintessential Phase.
There is a terrific quote in the first novel (attributed to the mice Frankie and Benjy) touching on the subject of parallel universes, which could be used to help Arthur work out their plight. But although the same quote was in the script of the equivalent radio episode in the Primary Phase, it was edited out for time by Mr Perkins. Quite understandable given the needs of that episode – after all, who would have known that multiple universes would become the engine that eventually drove Hitchhiker’s overall plot? Not even Douglas, probably. So having Arthur quote the mice in this context would require a blank look from Ford, and the need to explain this as yet another memory orphaned by the caprices of Adamsian space-time . . .
This was recorded on the first Friday afternoon of the schedule as one of many Ford/Arthur pick-up scenes, and while Paul Deeley was changing backup DAT tapes there was a discussion between Simon, Geoff and me about the characters of Arthur and Ford and their situation at this point in the narrative. This got so far round Pseuds Corner that we evidently needed bringing back to reality, and thus when we looked up we were greeted with a blank sheet of glass and a dark Control Room beyond – ‘Deeleya’ had switched off all the lights, as if everyone had gone home . . .
Being able to talk about what we were trying to do, rather than how on earth we were going to get it done in the time available, was fairly atypical of the recording experience. There is a lot of tension when the budget demands the recording of thirty minutes of useable material in an eight-hour day (including a forty-minute read-through). More than films, television drama or stage plays, radio is expected to achieve professional results with virtually no rehearsal, no matter what demands the scripts make on the actors and/or technicians. All this, the knowledge that now was our only chance to get the work right, with the clock steadily ticking away every minute, and the headaches of adding in ‘live’ surround scenes or ambitious effects like flying robots – or in Marvin’s case, dying robots – meant that life could get very stressful.
If there were a couple of occasions where tempers got a little frayed, 99 per cent of the time there was a relaxed atmosphere in which everybody felt free to use their skills to maximum effect, evolving the production into something greater than the sum of its parts. We were all aware of the privilege of working on Hitchhiker’s an
d were determined to enjoy the moment.
The death of Marvin This was ‘the good bit with Marvin in it’ as described by Douglas, so no pressure there, then. In the event due to Stephen Moore’s theatre commitments it was one of the first scenes Jane Horrocks recorded as Fenchurch. She was thrown in at the deep end and was terrific.
In the book Arthur does not verbally react to Marvin’s demise. In order to move things on, some sort of response was necessary, and, being a Douglas moment, a response that would pull the rug from under things a bit. Hence ‘Miserable git’. Followed very quickly by a more emotional coda.
THE QUINTESSENTIAL PHASE
Douglas’s difficulty in meeting deadlines is an undisputed fact, and that this reached its apotheosis in writing Mostly Harmless is beyond doubt. However to infer this was due to some kind of innate procrastination or laziness is to miss the essential truth that he was compulsively an innovator, and to innovate non-stop is an exhausting process. No wonder he approached it diffidently. It is the most complete way to spend oneself, and Douglas’s flow of continual creativity in all these books is awesome. To come up with one or two original ideas is enough for many writers, but to introduce dozens, as Douglas does, and then marshal them into strings of logic which further an ironically comedic story is an astonishing achievement. In each new book he will invent something new to explain or develop an idea rather than repeat himself by re-using an existing gadget, location or plot point; this makes the books so devastatingly original to read and unnerving to dramatize.
In scripting So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish and Mostly Harmless I had to decide whether to let these two stories fly like brilliant but unpredictable fireworks to their precipitate end – as in the novels – or to try and identify the unresolved threads which, if connected in some way, would make all five radio series a cohesive story set in the Universe According to Douglas. This would give Hitchhiker’s – across all its phases – some kind of symmetry, an end that Douglas hinted at when he said he felt the end of Mostly Harmless was unsatisfactory.
To remedy this, given his absence, I would have to shape the existing material, carefully pruning to keep the action moving along and adding new scenes only where existing Douglas story threads suggested them. This would probably re-introduce certain characters who got dropped off en route in the novels (Zaphod, Zarniwoop), and require certain plot elements to be kept in the audience’s field of view (the Vogons’ determination to tick the ‘Earth destroyed’ box).
I explained the adaptation to the cast before the read-through something like this:
INT. – SOUNDHOUSE STUDIO 3
DIRK: Let me quickly explain how I have worked on these last two stories to achieve some kind of closure on the story.
CAST: (Puzzled looks. Simon Jones stifles a yawn. Stephen Moore and Sue Sheridan are studiously making notes on their scripts. Geoff is quietly practising sibilant passages of dialogue with his new teeth)
DIRK: You’ve heard of story arcs, yes? They describe the shape of the story. The usual story arc for a book, radio play or film goes like this . . . (Dirk describes a sort of rainbow shape in the air)
CAST: (Helen Chattwell is smiling sympathetically. But that’s her natural expression. Everyone else is eyeing the last Danish pastry on the plate)
DIRK: Whereas Douglas’s story arc across these five novels goes like this . . . (Dirk describes a sort of letter ‘J’ in the air, finishing on the upstroke, as if to denote an unresolved, questing kind of ending)
CAST: (Glance down to find the last Danish pastry has gone. Kevin Davies is eating it, eye glued to viewfinder, oblivious. Ken Humphrey is silently fuming. That pastry was going to double as a Perfectly Normal Beast sandwich)
DIRK: (pressing on, encouraged by Stephen and Sue, still furiously note-taking) What I have done over these eight episodes, is, therefore, to find some kind of closure which is sympathetic to Douglas’s story arc . . . (Dirk now draws the ‘J’ again in the same way, but sweeps round from the upstroke back to where he started – effectively closing the shape into an oval) So I hope that makes sense.
CAST: (Stifled snorts. Simon and Mark have been silently aping Dirk’s gestures out of his line of sight. Then a kerfuffle breaks out: Stephen’s aircraft carrier has taken a direct hit. He and Sue have not been making notes but playing ‘Battleships’)
EPISODE ONE
SIGNATURE TUNE
ANNOUNCER: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, Quintessential Phase.
Sig fades.
INT. – COLD AMBIENCE
VOICE OF THE BIRD: (Icy whispery feel) Anything that happens, happens.
INT. – THE BOOK AMBIENCE
THE VOICE: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy contains many contradictions on matters of fact and, indeed, fiction, but it is very clear upon one point: Nothing travels faster than the speed of light. Nothing, that is, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. The Hingefreel people of Arkintoofle Minor once tried to build spaceships that were powered by bad news, but they didn’t work particularly well and were so extremely unwelcome whenever they arrived anywhere that there wasn’t really much point setting off in the first place.
The problem was that sub-light spaceships sent at great risk to do battle or business in distant parts took thousands of years to get anywhere, and by the time they eventually arrived – assuming they ever did – the use of hyperspace had usually been invented, so that whatever battles the ships had been sent to fight in the first place had been taken care of, centuries earlier. This didn’t, of course, deter their crews from wanting to fight the battles anyway. They’d had a couple of thousand years’ sleep, they’d come a long way to do a tough job and by Zarquon they were going to do it.
Once time travel was discovered and battles started pre-erupting hundreds of years before the issues even arose, confusion reached quantum levels. And when the Infinite Improbability Drive arrived and whole planets started turning unexpectedly into banana fruitcake, the history faculty of the University of Maximegalon finally gave up and surrendered its buildings to the rapidly expanding faculty of Divinity and Water Polo, which had been after them for years. This almost certainly means that no one will ever know for sure where the Grebulons came from, or exactly what it was they wanted.
FX: Whoosh – bang. Computery transpondery stuff under:
THE VOICE: Their sub-light ship had been travelling for millennia when a routine ten-yearly check of its systems resulted in a fairly significant error message. It slowly became clear that the ship’s memory, all the way up to – and including – its central mission module was missing, removed by the meteorite which had not only knocked a large hole in the ship, but also in that part of its equipment which was supposed to detect if the ship was hit by a meteorite. The Grebulon ship no longer had the faintest idea where its destination was or how to reach it. Tiny scraps of instructions were all it could reconstruct from the tatters of its memory.
FX: Electronic effects. Off-white noise in ‘****’ sections below:
CYBERBRAIN: Your **** year mission is to**** ******* **** ** *** ****, land ***** ** ***** ** a safe distance ****** monitor it and ** **** ****.
THE VOICE: In other words, complete garbage. The ship immediately revived all of its crew but while in hibernation, all their memories, identities and instructions – kept in the ship’s central mission module for safe-keeping – had also been lost. Thus they also had not the faintest idea of who they were or what they were doing.
GREBULONS: (Milling about) Hallo? . . . Who are you? Me? I’m not sure . . . Do I look familiar? I’ve lost my mind . . . have you seen it? What?
FX: Muddle of Earth broadcasting output, under:
THE VOICE: Before its core systems shut down for good, the ship looked for somewhere to land and something to monitor. The planet it found to land on was so achingly far from the sun that should warm it that it took all of its Envir-O-Form machinery and LifeSupport-O-Systems to render
it in any way O-habitable. There were other, nearer planets, but the ship’s Strateej-O-Mat was obviously locked into Lurk mode. As far as finding something to monitor was concerned, though, the Grebulons hit solid gold . . .
FX: Lift ironic mix of world media including pseudo-BBC output as an example of what the Grebulons were monitoring . . . A weekday afternoon drama, perhaps . . .
EXT. – SPACEPORT
FX: Spaceport ambience, under:
THE VOICE: Meanwhile, in another layer of the universe altogether, a scruffy figure in a dressing gown is about to be bitten very hard on the thigh.
FX: Ding dong!
TANNOY: (Distorted) Last call for the Arcturus shuttle at Gate 127, passengers please follow the slime trail to Gate 127 for the Arcturus Shuttle. Trank Team to Gate 208, please, a boghog is loose in Terminal Five. Eat and buy. Thank you.
ARTHUR: (Under the Voice) Excuse me, can you direct me to the Information Desk, please . . .
THE VOICE: The planet of NowWhat had been named after the first words of the earliest settlers to arrive there, after struggling across light years of the Galaxy. The main town was called OhWell. There weren’t any other towns to speak of. Settlement there had not been a success. In an economy based almost entirely on revenge, the major activities pursued on NowWhat were those of catching, skinning and eating NowWhattian boghogs, which were the only form of animal life on NowWhat, all other having long ago died of despair. The boghogs were tiny, vicious creatures, and the small margin by which they fell short of being completely inedible was the margin by which life on the planet subsisted.
The main trade on NowWhat was in the skins of the NowWhattian boghog, but it wasn’t successful because no one in their right minds would want to buy one. Making clothing out of boghog skins was an exercise in futility, since they were unaccountably thin and leaky. So what was the boghog’s secret of keeping warm? If anyone had ever learnt the language of the boghogs they would have discovered that there was no trick. The boghogs were as cold and wet as anyone else on the planet. No one had had the slightest desire to learn the language of the boghogs for the simple reason that these are creatures whose only form of communication is through biting each other very hard on the thigh.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Further Radio Scripts Page 28