Infinite improbability

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Infinite improbabilityGrab your towelsand Sub­ethaSens­O­Matics aswe celebrate 30years of ‘TheHitchhiker’s Guide’

B Y K R I S H R A G H A V

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In 1971, 19-year-old Douglas Noel Adamsfound himself penniless, drunk and lying ina field near Innsbruck, Austria. Looking up

at the stars, with a copy of the Hitch-hiker’sGuide to Europe in his hand, he imagined aHitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—he, for one,would be “off like a shot”, he thought.

Forty years later, the hazy musings of thatinebriated evening would become one of themost popular books of the 20th century. Froma BBC radio series in 1978, The Hitchhiker’s

Guide to the Galaxy books, first published inOctober 1979, became an internationalphenomenon. The tale of Adams’ inspirationwould grow in the telling; so much so that hehimself would admit that he wasn’t sure it everhappened. The Hitchhiker universe wouldexpand to six books, a TV series, a Hollywoodmovie and the names of two asteroids.

Adams died at the age of 49 in 2001, but theHitchhiker’s Guide lives on. The official sixthbook of the “trilogy” by Eoin Colfer wasreleased this month. We look back at 30 yearsof towels, paranoid androids and Pan-GalacticGargle Blasters.

Don’t panic:(from extremeleft) Marvin,the ParanoidAndroid,Zaphod, Fordand protagonistArthur Dent.

Q&A | DIRK MAGGS

Q&A | EOIN COLFER

GENTLY, DIRK

Dirk Maggs is a radioproducer and director of

the radio adaptations of threeof The Hitchhiker’s Guide tothe Galaxy novels and Adams’Dirk Gently detective books.He spoke to Lounge aboutdiscovering Hitchhiker’s, hisfavourite moment in theseries, and working withAdams. Edited excerpts:

When were you firstintroduced to ‘TheHitchhiker’s Guide to theGalaxy’ (‘h2g2’), and whatdid you think of it then?It was the summer of 1978. Iwas a trainee BBC studiomanager (“SM”), learning howto edit and mix radioprogrammes. Only monthsbefore, the first series of TheHitchhiker’s Guide to theGalaxy had finished its run onRadio 4.

Having missed it, butcatching some clips on reviewprogrammes, Hitchhiker’ssounded to me like a MontyPython-esque Doctor Who,and my Ford Prefect lifestyleof drinking a lot and dancingwith girls precluded furtherinvestigation. So it was onlywhen we did night shifts in theBBC World Service newsroomthat I listened to it. Over theyears, bored SMs had puttogether a tape library of stuffto listen to—comedyprogrammes, blooper reels,etc., that others could enjoywhen things got quiet. Theentire first series ofHitchhiker’s was among them,and it was at 3am one night ina dusty corner of Bush Housethat I realized it was a work ofgenius.What do you think theimpact of the series hasbeen, 30 years on?Hitchhiker’s has becomeiconic. I don’t think Douglasever dreamed of the success itwould have, let alone theglobal following it hasdeveloped since. Very fewcomic authors find their worksurvives translation—it’s atriumph only on the scale ofShakespeare or Tolstoy—butHitchhiker’s is read in morelanguages and more countriesthan Douglas ever visited—andhe was a great traveller.What was your relationshipwith Adams like? Did youever work together on aproject?I had never met Douglas untilhe phoned up the BBC andasked if I would be interestedin completing the Hitchhiker’ssaga—which by then hadbecome a series ofnovels—back in its originalmedium of radio. He hadheard some of my visual

production style on series likeSuperman and thought I wasthe producer for the job. Well,you can imagine I was roundto his house like a shot.

He proved to be charming,a wonderful mixture ofenthusiastic school pal andall-knowing sage. I thoroughlyenjoyed our meetings thoughthey were sadly few, and thenhe died at the tragically youngage of 49. I’m just glad Ieventually had the chance tocomplete the work, though I’meternally sorry he was not inthe studio with us when wedid. Though you know, in away, of course, he was.Do you have a favourite‘h2g2’ moment or character?It’s very hard after three seriesto think of a particularfavourite because there are somany. Arthur Dent is, ofcourse, because he is the lostand lonely person inside all ofus, looking for contentmentand happiness and gettingmore and more bamboozledby the strangeness and varietyof life.

One of the strangecharacters I loved was themystic played in our (The)Quandary Phase by SaeedJaffrey—Arthur and he sit onpoles high above the ground,arguing over philosophicalissues, and he gets more andmore obtuse until he vanishes.Of course, it helps that SimonJones and Saeed are suchwonderful actors and such ajoy to work with, let alone thematerial by Douglas.What sort of response didyou get for your adaptations?Overall there was anavalanche of gratitude that wehad managed to finally makethe series, and that we hadstayed so true to the spirit ofthe originals. Of course, thereare always a tight bunch ofdie-hard fans who behave likeThought Police and feel thatnothing must be touched, butI discussed them with Douglaswhen he was still alive and hisdismissive comment abouthow to take their criticism wasbrief, pithy and unprintable.

The man who adapted the cult series to radio on his favourite‘h2g2’ moment, and on working with Douglas Adams

Radio ga ga: Dirk Maggs.

THE NEXT HITCHHIKERThe author of the new book on why Zaphod Beeblebroxis his favourite character, and his own special towel

Eoin Colfer is the authorof the Artemis Fowl

series of books. In 2008, hewas commissioned at therequest of Douglas Adams’widow Jane Belson to writethe official sixth book of theHitchhiker’s Guide (h2g2)trilogy to coincide with the30th anniversary of theseries. Edited excerpts:

What is it about h2g2 that’smade it so immenselypopular?When I first read it, it was acompletely new genre offiction—sci-fi satire. Therewas nothing quite like it,and the only thing thatresembled it was...Gulliver’sTravels by Jonathan Swift,and that was written 250years ago!

I think it’s the clevernessof the writing that’s made itendure. The jokes are so

cleverly set up, and he usesa mix of funny one-linersand also very large,complicated satire setpieces. It speaks to peoplewho follow politics andcurrent affairs, and I thinkthis contributed to thelongevity of the series,because I know a lot ofpeople, young people, whosay they were introduced tothe books by their parents.They’re already beingpassed down generation togeneration.Do your favouritecharacters make anappearance in the book?I always really liked ZaphodBeeblebrox, the galacticpresident. He is veryeminently suitable totoday—he’s a real creatureof the new millennium, he isdriven by the media, bycelebrity culture. He’s in the

book, yes. I was a hugeMarvin the ParanoidAndroid fan too. But hisdeath scene was sowell-written in the originalbooks that I didn’t think itwould be very respectable tobring him back again.What is your favourite partin the new book?I think my favourite part istowards the very end, wherethere’s a big showdown onthis new planet called Nano,where Thor the ThunderGod fights Wowbagger theInfinitely Prolonged withunusual consequences.There’s also a new Irishcharacter (in contrast to all

the Englishness of theoriginal), and he’s turningout to be quite a favourite.Will you be working onanother ‘h2g2’ book?I’m not going to do anymore. I did this one, and Ithought it was a nicething...but to do more thanthat would be like takingover the series. But I wouldlike to see someone else giveit a shot, though. There area lot of writers out therewho could, and it would bea very nice Douglas tribute.What would an ‘h2g2’soundtrack sound like?Well, I actually listened a lotto the original soundtrack bya guy called Joby Talbot,who wrote the OST for theoriginal radio show, andthen the TV series. Theyloved him so much theyused bits of it for the movieas well.What would you do onInternational Towel Day?I’d bring out my specialHitchhiker’s Guide towel ( Ihave one!), and I’d be lyingon that towel on holiday ina nice beach somewhere.

10 million BC 3 Sep 1781 1978­1979 A Thursday in 1981 1987­88 1992­1998 2002­2006

u Deep Thoughtcomputes theanswer to theultimate questionof Life, theUniverse andEverything. It’s 42.

u Birth ofZaphodBeeblebrox,future presidentof the galaxy, inBetelgeuse Five.

u Series 1 of ‘The Hitchhiker’sGuide to the Galaxy’ airs on BBCRadio 4. In spite of a 10.30pm sloton a Wednesday, the seriesbecomes popular.u ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to theGalaxy’ by Douglas Adams ispublished. It sells 250,000 copiesin the first three months.

u The sequel,‘The Restaurantat the End of theUniverse’, ispublished. Spends19 weeks on thebest­seller list.

1980 1982­1986

uThe earth is destroyedto make way for ahyperspace bypass.

u Games developer Infocomreleases a computer game called‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to theGalaxy’, written by Adams andSteve Meretzky. The game featureda notoriously difficult puzzle called‘The Babel Fish dispenser’, whoseinfamy led Infocom to sell T­shirtsthat said “I got the Babel fish!”

u The first two novelsfeaturing ‘Dirk Gently’sHolistic Detective Agency’are published. It’s describedon the cover as a “thumpinggood detective­ghost­horror­whodunnit­timetravel­romantic­musical­comedy­epic”.

1990

u ‘Last Chance to See’, acompanion book to a BBCdocumentary on animalsclose to or threatenedwith extinction, ispublished. Co­written withzoologist Mark Carwardine,Adams would describe itas his “favourite work”.

u Book 5 of the increasinglyridiculous “trilogy” ‘MostlyHarmless’ is published.u Adams’ second video game,‘Starship Titanic’, is releasedfor the PC. A novel spin­off byTerry Jones is published.

2001

u Douglas Adams dies of aheart attack at the age of 49.Biologist and famous atheistRichard Dawkins would writeon the occasion: “Science haslost a friend, literature has losta luminary, the mountain gorillaand the black rhino have lost agallant defender.”

2009

u Adams’ unfinishedDirk Gently novel‘Salmon of Doubt’ ispublished posthumously.u After many falsestarts, ‘The Hitchhiker’sGuide’ film sees the lightof day, starring MartinFreeman, Mos Def andZooey Deschanel.

u Book 6 of thetrilogy—‘AndAnother Thing...’,written by EoinColfer—ispublished tocoincide with the30th anniversaryof the first book.

42GOINGON 30

From books toasteroid belts,

we chart thebyzantine

branches ofthe

‘Hitchhiker’sGuide’ media

empire

Starry: Author Eoin Colfer.

AFP