The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Further Radio Scripts Read online

  ARTHUR: It’s like Alice, chasing the white rabbit – no, robot. (He tries to steel himself) There are no robots here. There are definitely no white robots here. There –

  FX: Click. BZZZT! Steady hum, under:

  ARTHUR: (Fearful) – is, however, a neon sign saying ‘You Have Been Diverted’.

  FX: Click. BZZZT! Hum switches off.

  ARTHUR: Or there was. I hope I’m dreaming this.

  FX: Click. BZZZT! Steady hum, under:

  ARTHUR: Three green dots . . . There’s a name for that: ‘irritating’. Oh, and a comma . . . ‘You Have Been Diverted dot dot dot comma’.

  FX: Click. BZZZT! Hum switches off.

  ARTHUR: (To self) Well, hm, not entertainingly . . .

  FX: Click. BZZZT! Steady hum, under:

  ARTHUR: That’s my name.

  FX: Click. BZZZT! Hum switches off.

  ARTHUR: Good grief . . .

  FX: Click. BZZZT! Steady hum, under:

  ARTHUR:‘Welcome’? (To self) ‘You Have Been Diverted, Arthur Dent. Welcome’.

  FX: Click. BZZZT! Hum switches off, then on.

  ARTHUR:‘I Don’t Think’ . . .

  FX: Click. BZZZT! Hum switches off.

  ARTHUR: (Really freaking) Err . . . hello . . . ?

  FX: Running.

  ARTHUR: (To self) I’m afraid, I really am afraid . . .

  FX: Heart beat.

  ARTHUR: My heart’s so loud it sounds like somebody beating a bass drum in here with me . . .

  FX: Heart beat gets stronger, under:

  ARTHUR: Somebody is beating a bass drum!

  FX: Bass drum beating gets closer, then stops.

  ARTHUR: (Gasp)

  FX: Click. BZZZT! Steady hum, under:

  ARTHUR: (Reads) ‘Do Not Be Alarmed’.

  FX: Click. BZZZT! Hum switches off.

  ARTHUR: OK, what should I be? Come on, sign.

  FX: Click. BZZZT! Hum switches on.

  ARTHUR: (Reading) ‘Be Very Very Frightened, Arthur Dent.’

  FX: Click. BZZZT! Hum switches off.

  ARTHUR: (Starts) Who’s that?! Is anyone there? Grow up, Arthur, there are no hideous monsters here – if there are I’ll eat my—

  FX: Huge buzz of wings and a landing behind him. Arthur spins back round.

  ARTHUR: Aaaah! . . . What do you want?

  FX: Agrajag and Arthur breathing for a moment. Then:

  AGRAJAG: (Big and echoey) Bet you weren’t expecting to see me again.

  INT. – THE BOOK AMBIENCE

  THE VOICE: What has Arthur Dent stumbled upon in the recesses of the labyrinth? Has Ford Prefect found a drink and a peer group to share it with? Can Slartibartfast stop the Krikkit robots from acquiring the Silver Bail? Fasten your acceleration straps, it’s going to be a bumpy next instalment of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

  ANNOUNCER: If you have been affected by or would like to talk to someone about any of the issues featured in that programme, you may like to vidiphone our Sub-Etha Helpline. Calls charged at Galactic rates.

  FOOTNOTES

  Mancunia correcting-fluid manufacturers Bruce suggested this nod to the ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch by the Pythons, who so inspired Douglas.

  The Wikkit Gate documentary This is one of those scenes that you write for radio thinking, ‘I’ll sort it out in the edit.’ Then when you get to the edit you have to take yourself outside and administer a severe beating to yourself because it’s a complete pig to make sense of two separate flows of events running concurrently. And then for the broadcast version you have to re-edit it to be shorter and it still needs to make sense. So you are black and blue and your brain is oozing out of your ears and the dratted scene still needs editing.

  The Krikkit song In the novel Douglas clearly – and fairly respectfully – signals that this should be a ‘tribute to Paul McCartney’ song. And although Douglas loved the Beatles, and our composer Wix Wickens is the great man’s keyboard player, Sir Paul writes from the heart and isn’t really into self-tribute. The logical answer was to approach Philip Pope, who was a friend of Douglas and the musical genius behind the HeeBeeGeeBees (the affectionate pastiche rock act that sprang from the 1980s comedy show Radio Active, also featuring Mancunian Correcting-Fluid Magnate Mike Fenton Stevens and the highly esteemed Geoffrey Perkins, who of course produced the first and second radio series). Philip came up with a wonderful – and respectful – tribute song, the entire lyric of which I append here with his kind permission:

  Chorus 1

  Our lovely world’s so lovely

  And everything’s so nice

  And everyone’s so happy

  Beneath the ink-black skies.

  Verse

  She is the only One for me

  I’m under her spell I can’t resist

  We walked hand in hand above the grass

  Then in the dark we kissed.

  Chorus 2

  Our lovely world’s so lovely

  See how the flowers grow

  It’s just a shame my dog died

  She loved those flowers so!

  Middle 8

  It’s so much fun working on the farm

  It fills my heart and soul with pride

  My wife and kids waiting safe from harm

  Makes me feel so warm inside.

  Chorus

  Our lovely world’s so lovely

  And everything’s so nice

  And everyone’s so happy

  Beneath the ink-black skies

  Our lovely world’s so lovely

  See how the flowers grow

  It’s such a shame my dog died

  She loved those flowers so!

  © Philip Pope 2004

  Zaphod and the Krikkit robots There was much stifled laughter in the studio as Mark stalked about splashing his prop Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster everywhere (complete with empty garden snail shells; I have no idea what Ken thought they represented) while interrogating a gagged Roger Gregg (through the portable speaker as Eddie), ‘live’, to absolutely no useful effect at all. A funny scene to record but also a great opportunity to mix comedy and menace, as the inexorable advance through the ship of the Krikkit robots is heard in the background.

  Judiciary Pag Rupert Degas lifted this part out of the humorous into the hilarious. His jerk-awake ‘What?! . . . Right!’ was so good that I used it again in the ‘shower scene’ under the Voice’s ensuing narration. Several people have asked where the young lady in question was recorded. I believe it may have been in the ticket queue at Fenchurch Street Station . . .

  The toilet transporter I must beg Douglas’s forgiveness for introducing a toilet gag to Hitchhiker’s. There’s no real excuse, but it is hinted at in the book, and apart from Richard’s sublimely patient Slartibartfast co-ordinating activity in the cubicles, there is something Milliganesque about the FX hinge creaks as the seats are lifted.

  EPISODE FOUR

  SIGNATURE TUNE

  ANNOUNCER: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, Tertiary Phase.

  INT. – THE BOOK AMBIENCE

  Musical drone of great eeriness under:

  THE VOICE: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has much to say on the subject of time travel and its part in the unhallowed fate of the Cathedral of Chalesm. It has, however, very little to say about the abduction of people by the remote reprogramming of teleportation coordinates to bring them to a Cathedral of Hate. This is because the abductee in question, Arthur Dent, is the only creature – apart from its creator – to witness the Cathedral in all its awe-inspiring, subterranean horror. But first he must endure the visions in the Labyrinth that surrounds it.

  INT. – AGRAJAG’S LABYRINTH

  Eerie echoey acoustic.

  ARTHUR: (Starting) Who’s that? Is anyone there? Grow up, Arthur, there are no hideous monsters here. If there are, I’ll eat my—

  FX: Huge buzz of wings and a landing behind him. Arthur spins back round.

  ARTHUR: Waaaah! What d’you
want?

  FX: Agrajag and Arthur breathing for a moment. Then:

  AGRAJAG: (Echoey throughout this sequence) Bet you weren’t expecting to see me again.

  ARTHUR: But – but I’ve never, ever seen a housefly as big as a dog—

  AGRAJAG: Or perhaps you remember me better as the rabbit.

  FX: BZZZT. Huge sniffling.

  ARTHUR: The rabbit? It’s only a hologram, Arthur, keep calm. The rabbit. The rabbit? No, I’m afraid I don’t! (Arthur reacts incredulously under the following)

  AGRAJAG: Born in darkness, raised in darkness. One morning I poked my head out for the first time into the bright new world and got it split open by what felt like some primitive instrument made of flint.

  ARTHUR: What?

  AGRAJAG: Made by you, Arthur Dent, and wielded by you. You turned my skin into a bag for keeping interesting stones in. I happen to know that because in my next life I came back as a fly again and you swatted me. Again.

  ARTHUR: Yes, but I—

  AGRAJAG: Only this time you swatted me with the bag you’d made of my previous skin. Arthur Dent, you are not merely a cruel and heartless man, you are also staggeringly tactless!

  ARTHUR: Um. . . I . . . I don’t—

  AGRAJAG: I see you have lost the bag. Probably got bored with it, did you?

  ARTHUR: No. No!

  FX: Hologram switched on.

  AGRAJAG: Meet the newt you trod on.

  ARTHUR: (Jumps) Uggh!

  AGRAJAG: That was me, too. As if you didn’t know!

  ARTHUR: Know? Know?!

  AGRAJAG: The interesting thing about reincarnation is that most people, most spirits, are not aware that it is happening to them.

  ARTHUR: Er, look, I really . . . (Reacts through following)

  AGRAJAG: I was aware. That is, I became aware. Slowly. Gradually. I could hardly help it, could I, when the same thing kept happening, over and over and over again! Every life I ever lived, I got killed by Arthur Dent. Any world, any body, any time, I’m just getting settled down, along comes Arthur Dent – pow, he kills me.

  ARTHUR: Look, I do th—

  AGRAJAG: Hard not to notice. Bit of a memory-jogger. Bit of a pointer. Bit of a bloody giveaway!

  ARTHUR: No, really, I—

  AGRAJAG: ‘That’s funny,’ my spirit would say to itself as it winged its way back to the netherworld after another fruitless Dent-ended venture into the land of the living, ‘that man who just ran over me as I was hopping across the road to my favourite pond looked a little familiar . . .’ And gradually I got to piece it together, Dent, you multiple-me-murderer!

  The echoes die away down the Labyrinth corridors.

  ARTHUR: (After a pause) But what I don’t underst—

  AGRAJAG: Here’s the moment, Dent, here’s the moment when at last I knew!

  FX: Hologram switched on.

  (Arthur is a bit lost trying to pin this one down)

  ARTHUR: Ugh? Ugh! No, no, no, I’m sorry, I’m sure I’ve never been in a huge pink wet cave with a vast, slimy creature rolling around over white tombstones! Oh my God . . . it’s the inside of my mouth. And that’s an oyster. I’m swallowing an oyster! An oyster that . . . oh . . . (Horrible suspicion) was . . .

  FX: Hologram switched off.

  ARTHUR: . . . you.

  AGRAJAG: Tell me it was a coincidence, Dent. I dare you to tell me it was a coincidence!

  ARTHUR: (Quickly) It was a coincidence.

  AGRAJAG: It was not!

  ARTHUR: It was! It was!

  AGRAJAG: If it was a coincidence, then my name is not Agrajag!!!

  ARTHUR: And presumably you would claim that that was your name?

  AGRAJAG: Yes!

  ARTHUR: Well, I’m afraid it was still a coincidence!

  AGRAJAG: Come in here and say that!

  ARTHUR: Right. I will.

  FX: Arthur takes several paces forward and comes to a halt, under:

  ARTHUR: I can assure you that it was a—

  FX: Dramatic organ chord.

  ARTHUR: (Very echoey) My God!

  INT. – THE BOOK AMBIENCE

  The musical drone starts this off but soon turns to a dark exploration of Agrajag’s madness. We also hear Arthur reacting to what is described, under:

  THE VOICE: The Cathedral of Hate that Arthur now enters is the product of a mind that is not merely twisted, but actually sprained and consequently has no place in a quality family publication such as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which is why this addendum concerning Arthur’s current location can only be found in pirated editions, opposite banned commercials for Eccentrica Gallumbits’ chat room and virtual sauna.

  FX: BZZZT. Cut to cheesy porn-movie music.

  ECCENTRICA GALLUMBITS (For it is she) Come here, Daddy! Oh, you look so good!

  FX: BZZZT. Cut back to the gloomy ambience, with cathedral effects: dripping water, low organ chords etc.

  THE VOICE: The chamber has been carved out of the inside of a mountain, and beyond the twisted buttresses . . . overhead it is utterly black.

  Where it isn’t black Arthur is inclined to wish that it was, because the colours with which some of the unspeakable details are picked out range from Ultra-Violent to Infra-Dead –

  ARTHUR: (Echoey in here) Oh, yuk!

  THE VOICE: – taking in Liver Purple, Loathsome Lilac, Matter Yellow, Burnt Hombre and Gan Green on the way. The unspeakable details which these colours pick out are gargoyles which all look inwards, from the walls, from the pillars, from the flying buttresses and choir stalls, towards an immense statue, which we will come to in a moment.

  ARTHUR: Good grief!

  THE VOICE: Around the monumental walls are vast engraved stone tablets in memory of those who’ve fallen to . . . Arthur Dent. The names of some of these commemorated are underlined with asterisks against them. So, for instance, the name of a cow which has been slaughtered and of which Arthur Dent happened to eat a fillet steak has the plainest engraving. Whereas the name of a fish which Arthur himself caught, cooked, decided he didn’t like and left on the side of the plate has a double underlining, three sets of asterisks and a bleeding dagger appended, just to make the point.

  ARTHUR: (To himself) Pathetic . . .

  THE VOICE: And what is most disturbing to Arthur about it is the very clear implication that all these people and creatures are indeed the same person, over and over again. And it’s equally clear that this same person is, however unfairly, extremely upset and annoyed, an annoyance which now spans the whole of time and space in its infinite umbrage, and given its fullest expression in the statue at the centre of all this monstrosity. A statue of Arthur Dent –

  ARTHUR: That’s me!

  THE VOICE: – and an unflattering one.

  ARTHUR: Ugh . . .

  THE VOICE: Fifty feet tall if it’s an inch – which it’s not – crammed with insult to its subject matter, from the small pimple on the side of his nose to the poorish cut of his dressing gown, there is no aspect of Arthur Dent which isn’t lambasted and vilified.

  ARTHUR: Oh, please!

  THE VOICE: With each of the thirty arms which the sculptor in a fit of artistic fervour has decided to give him, he is either braining a rabbit, swatting a fly, pulling a wishbone, picking a flea from his hair or doing something which Arthur’s first glance cannot quite identify.

  ARTHUR: Oh my . . .

  THE VOICE: His feet, incidentally, are stamping on ants.

  ARTHUR: Oh, this is trying too hard.

  THE VOICE: Arthur is depicted as an evil, rapacious, bloodied ogre, slaughtering his way through an innocent one-man Universe. (Arthur sighs) And waddling round him, savouring the moment, is the black razor-toothed creature (Arthur starts loudly) that he has supposedly been persecuting all this time. It looks for all the Galaxy like a mad, fat scruffy bat.

  FX: Agrajag breathing and wingflaps, Arthur reacting, foley movement, under:

  AGRAJAG: HhhhhhrrrrrraaaaaaHHHHHH!!!

  ARTHUR: Ow! Stop poking
me!

  AGRAJAG: I was at a cricket match.

  ARTHUR: Looking like that?

  AGRAJAG: Not in this body! Not in this body, this is my last body, my last life. This is my revenge body! My kill-Arthur-Dent body! My last chance. I had to fight to get it, too.

  ARTHUR: B-b-but how could this poss—

  AGRAJAG: I was at a cricket match! I had a weak heart condition, but what, I said to my wife, can happen to me at a cricket match?

  ARTHUR: (Doomed)Oh. Yes . . . ?

  AGRAJAG: As I’m watching, what happens? Two people quite maliciously appear out of thin air just in front of me. The last thing I can’t help but notice before my poor heart gives out in shock is that one of them is Arthur Dent wearing a rabbit bone in his beard. Coincidence?

  ARTHUR: (Firmly) Yes.

  AGRAJAG: Coincidence?!!

  ARTHUR: Look, it’s just fate playing silly buggers with you. With me. With us! It’s a complete coincidence.

  AGRAJAG: What have you got against me, Dent?

  ARTHUR: Nothing. Honestly, nothing.

  AGRAJAG: Seems a strange way to relate to somebody you’ve got nothing against, killing them all the time. Very curious piece of social interaction, I would call that. I would also call it a lie!

  ARTHUR: Look, I’m very sorry. There’s been a terrible misunderstanding. Now, I’ve really got to go. I’m meant to be helping save the Universe.

  AGRAJAG: At one point, I decided to give up. Yes, I would not come back. I would stay in the netherworld. And what happened?

  ARTHUR: I don’t know.

  AGRAJAG: I got yanked involuntarily back into the physical world – as a bunch of petunias. In, I might add, a bowl.

  ARTHUR: Oh dear.

  AGRAJAG: This particular happy little lifetime started off with me, in my bowl, unsupported, three hundred miles above the surface of a particularly grim planet. Not a naturally tenable position for a bowl of petunias, you might think, and you’d be right! That life ended a very short while later, three hundred miles lower in, I might again add, the fresh wreckage of a whale. My spirit brother.

  ARTHUR: Hm. Well.

  AGRAJAG: On the way down I couldn’t help noticing a flashy-looking white spaceship. And looking out of a port on this flashy-looking spaceship was a smug-looking Arthur Dent. Coincidence?!!

  ARTHUR: (Grimly) Hm. Goodbye.