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

  FORD PREFECT: Yeeeargh!

  FX: He rolls several times on floor. A pause.

  VANN HARL: That’s him.

  VOGON GUARD: Beeblebrox?

  VANN HARL: (Surrounded by idiots) No, Prefect. Do try and keep up!

  FORD PREFECT: (Getting up) Zarniwoop. You’re awake? Where did the sofa go? Ah. Rocket launcher on Vogon’s shoulder – ba-ad sign.

  VANN HARL: Prefect. You’re fired. Literally.

  FORD PREFECT: Colin! The window!

  COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: Whoopee!

  FX: Colin zips through window – tinkle of glass.

  FX: Rocket launcher fires. Explosion. Glass smash.

  FORD PREFECT: (Jumps out of window) Colinnnnnnnnn . . . !!!!

  INT. – THE BOOK AMBIENCE

  THE VOICE: Can Ford Prefect survive a fall from the Hitchhiker’s Guide Building’s 23rd floor equipped with nothing but a threadbare towel and a dubious credit card? Has Arthur Dent finally met a grisly fate at Stavromula Beta? What is the reality behind the portable Total Perspective Unit? Random layers of multidimensionality are sandwiched together in the next mouth-watering episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy . . .

  FOOTNOTES

  Smelly Photocopier Woman Miriam Margolyes performed two takes of this scene, uncharacteristically losing her voice during the second. But as the first take was perfect anyway (a safe bet with actors as good as Miriam and Simon), and the second just for insurance, we were home and dry.

  This was a great opportunity for broad humour and we did not hesitate to grab it – Ken Humphrey in particular. His role was to provide ‘spot’ or ‘live effects’ (or ‘foley’) for these series. These are the immediate physical sounds characters might make whilst moving around, handling props like tea cups, glasses, cutlery, and over the years we have developed a very intense and layered approach to creating a reality beyond just the sound of actors speaking lines of dialogue. For example, by default, Ken supplies the movement of cloth under the actors’ voices, suggesting their clothing gently rustling as they gesture, and larger sounds, often of the opening and closing variety – be it doors, boxes, windows or umbrellas (very rapidly and repeatedly to simulate beating wings). There is also more violent stuff such as banging bits of metal about to suggest robots collapsing, or Zaphod banging bits of metal about; but generally speaking after a certain point – particularly if it involves risk to life and limb – the relevant sound effects are left to be added later, either sound designed especially by me or Paul Weir or harvested from one of the several professional sound-effects libraries available.

  Ken is the consummate preparation junkie, arriving at the studio wheeling in huge trunks packed with swanee whistles, bolts of fine silk, stuffed pandas, anything he can use to make a sound effect. (This is only a slight exaggeration.)

  In the case of the Smelly Photocopier Woman he arrived with a carrier bag filled with whoopee cushions to simulate ruptured goats’ bladders, kiddie pots of fart gel to simulate the source of some of the smells, buckets of soggy papier mâché to simulate something nasty Arthur treads in and a little battery-powered fan to make a noise like an expiring giant bluebottle. It’s just as well Miriam was playing the part, no other actress could fend off such a battery of effects. Actually that could be the reason she lost her voice – she got a sneak preview of Ken’s carrier bag and decided to go for broke . . .

  The history of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Nearly the opening monologue in the Tertiary Phase, transplanted for logical reasons to this episode. Whether Paul ‘Wix’ Wickens will be able to create the sound of monks chanting with their mouths full (The Holy Lunching Friars of Voondon) is – at the time of writing – still a matter of conjecture. But given his talent and the range of his contributions so far it is surely not beyond him. I expect burps and belches will feature, they’re more percussive.

  Wix took on an unenviable task, scoring new episodes of a radio series which had twenty-five years to imprint itself – music and all – on the consciousness of its devotees. Although Geoffrey Perkins had largely used commercial discs for music in the Primary Phase, Paddy Kingsland had composed and performed a unique and very appropriate score for the Secondary Phase. Now these new phases were commissioned, Douglas’s widow Jane Belson suggested their old friend Wix Wickens to provide music, which seemed a terrific idea. Wix and Douglas shared a piano teacher as teenagers, although it is likely that Wix was the more adept pupil, given his track record since as a record producer and keyboard player of many years’ standing in Paul McCartney’s bands. But then Douglas didn’t exactly flunk in his area of expertise, either.

  Douglas had often said he wanted the radio Hitchhiker’s shows to sound like rock albums, specifically a Beatles album like Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, so having Wix aboard made extra good sense. On a related level Douglas liked very much the cinematic feel my superhero serials had on BBC Radio, particularly the use of music to add atmosphere and paint in emotional textures. He wanted the same for the new Hitchhiker’s, not just linking music or ambient music under the Voice but music that augmented dialogue and action sequences.

  Wix turned up trumps in the most spectacular way. All one need do is listen back to sequences from the Tertiary Phase like Arthur and Ford chasing the sofa across prehistoric Earth, Marvin relating the story of the collapsing bridge on the swamp planet, or Prak attempting to tell Arthur the location of God’s Last Message to His Creation, accompanied by a genuinely funny series of more and more portentous music cues, each collapsing more spectacularly, to hear how cleverly Wix’s score aids and abets the story without ever trying to say ‘this is funny’.

  The Voice of the Bird/Ford in Zarniwoop’s den Continuing the shaping of existing scenes in Mostly Harmless to bring closure to the saga, Ford and Zarniwoop come face to face and it is here that the mysterious ‘Voice of the Bird’ which has begun increasingly to interrupt ‘The Voice’ is identified as the New Voice of the Guide, in other words, the Guide Mark II, and its choice is explained by Zarniwoop as a marketing decision – ‘we don’t sell something with a plummy pompous pedagogue . . . No! We sell a sultry Brantisvogan Escort Agency VIP vamp voice . . .’. By now listeners familiar with Hitchhiker’s would have figured out – if not much much earlier – that as the hundreds of thousands of Brantisvogan escort girls were the Lintilla clones from the Secondary Phase, the voice of the Guide Mark II would be Lintilla’s – and therefore played, as before, by Rula Lenska.

  In the novel Ford shouting ‘Kill’ in response to Vann Harl’s explanation of new circumstances at the Guide is very ambiguous and could be triggered by the phrase ‘We would value your input’, the Dine-O-Charge card, or just the whole new marketing approach the Guide is taking.

  For the purposes of this dramatization, ‘We would value your input’ was so reminiscent of the sort of ironic policy-speak BBC Radio uses to keep independent programme makers at arms’ length (it is all too often followed by ‘if the quota permits’) that a gentle satirical barb was impossible to resist, and will be something to smile about in the Job Centre queue.

  The virtual accounting software Another blending of old and new elements in the story to bring Ford and Zaphod back together inside the software that was once the ‘Virtual Universe’ in Zarniwoop’s office but has now been rendered obsolete by the new ‘portable unit’, i.e. the Guide Mark II.

  There are two Hitchcockian ‘McGuffins’ (objects or ideas around which a plot revolves) in the Quintessential Phase and this concept is the first of them.

  Ahem. It is possible to assume that Zaphod’s experiences in the Secondary Phase with Zarniwoop etc. were not necessarily experienced in the most sober state of mind. Thus his understanding of the Total Perspective Vortex as merely a torture machine might be quite a long way short of the Full Montgomery. At the end of the next episode the Guide Mark II (in its guise as the Bird) explains to Random how it exists across all available dimensions. It has Total Perspective. By connecting
that idea back to the mysterious vortex that Zaphod experienced (and, if you think about it, to an organic mind a vision in Total Perspective would indeed be a form of torture), it could easily be a next-generation product of the technology, subverted by the Vogons (whose bureaucracy has spread like a virus into every crevice) for their own purposes.

  On the other hand one could just go stick one’s head in a pig.

  EPISODE THREE

  SIGNATURE TUNE

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

  Sig fades.

  INT. – THE BOOK AMBIENCE

  FX: Arthur making sandwiches, under:

  THE VOICE: Lamuella is listed briefly in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as a planet partly bisected by a Plural Zone near a hyperspace jump point on the Eastern Rim of the Galaxy. It is, by and large, unknown, which is a pity; for upon Lamuella every aspect of making the humble sandwich has been developed beyond the dreams of even the picnic-food epicures on Thermos Magna VI. Choosing the right bread, for instance. The Sandwich Maker in Lamuella’s only significant settlement spends many months in daily consultation and experiment with Grarp the Baker. And between them they have created a loaf of exactly a consistency dense enough to slice thinly and neatly, while still being light, moist and having that fine nuttiness which best enhances the roasted, sliced flesh of a Perfectly Normal Beast.

  The proper tools, of course, are crucial, and many are the days that the Sandwich Maker will spend silhouetted against the glow of Strinder the Tool Maker’s forge, making slow sweeping movements through the air trying one knife after another. First there is the knife for the slicing of the bread: a firm, authoritative blade which imposes a clear and defining will on a loaf. Then there is the butter-spreading knife – a whippy little number but still with a firm backbone to it. King amongst the knives, of course, is the carving knife. This is the blade that not merely imposes its will on the medium through which it moves. It must work with it; be guided by the grain of the meat. The Sandwich Maker will flip each slice with a smooth flick of the wrist onto the bread, trim it with four deft strokes and then add a few slices of newcumber and fladish and a touch of splagberry sauce before applying the topmost, crowning layer of bread. There are those in the village who are happy chopping wood; those who are content carrying water, and Old Thrashbarg may be head man, soothsayer and all round busybody, but to be the Sandwich Maker is heaven itself.

  Or so the Sandwich Maker thinks, as he sings as he works . . .

  INT. – ARTHUR’S SANDWICH SHOP

  DRIMPLE: (His apprentice, outside) Sandwich Maker! Sandwich Maker!

  FX: Finishing off making sandwiches, under:

  ARTHUR: (For it is he; sings)

  Our lovely world’s so lovely

  And everything’s so nice

  And everyone’s so happy

  Beneath the ink-black skies –

  (Calls) Drimple? Is this the last of the Perfectly Normal Beast?

  DRIMPLE: (Enters, breathless) Yes, Sandwich Maker. But next Vroonday they will migrate again. At four thirty in the afternoon. Old Thrashbarg predicts it. He says this herd will yield maybe seven dozen carcasses. That should tide us over till the return migration.

  ARTHUR: Let’s hope Thrashbarg has examined his pikka bird entrails correctly.

  DRIMPLE: Thrashbarg is never wrong. Not about Perfectly Normal Beasts.

  ARTHUR: Surprising, considering that while the rest of the village risk life and limb on the actual hunt, he makes up stories about his bravery in the safety of his hut.

  DRIMPLE: Sandwich Maker, the Almighty Bob has sent another chariot. Not a fiery one such as that which bore you unto us, but a smooth one with go-faster stripes. It settled in the clearing an hour ago. Old Thrashbarg is propitiating it.

  ARTHUR: (Wiping his hands) Good grief. Show me.

  EXT. – LAMUELLA – VILLAGE CLEARING

  FX: Hum of spacecraft on ground.

  FX: Pikka birds pikking.

  FX: Villagers muttering fearfully.

  OLD THRASHBARG: (Staff raised to the heavens) Almighty Bob! Thou hast vouchsafed us the world of Lamuella for our dwelling place! The migrations of the Perfectly Normal Beasts for our food! The droppings of the pikka birds to fertilize our crops! And many moons ago, by fiery chariot, you sent unto us your Only Begotten Sandwich Maker to . . . Make our Sandwiches. Since which time we have known which side our bread is—

  GRARP: (Puzzled) Old Thrashbarg, sorry to interrupt but . . . why did Almighty Bob send his only begotten Sandwich Maker in a burning fiery chariot rather than, perhaps, in one that might have landed quietly – like this one?

  OMNES: Grarp’s got a point there / Mayhap it was a sign / Bob moves in mysterious ways . . .

  STRINDER: After all, if Almighty Bob loves his people, why would he send a chariot that burned down half the forest, filling it with ghosts?

  GRARP: And injuring the Sandwich Maker quite badly, so that he limps heavily these days.

  OMNES: Hearken unto Strinder / The logic of the Tool Maker is not gainsaid / It’s bloody spooky in there . . .

  OLD THRASHBARG: Shhhh! Shhhh – you unbelievers! Who are you to argue with the Ineffable Will of Bob!

  (A beat)

  OLD WOMAN: What does ineffable mean?

  OLD THRASHBARG: Look it up!

  OLD WOMAN: Lend us yer dictionary, then.

  OLD THRASHBARG: It is forbidden.

  GRARP: Why?

  OLD THRASHBARG: It is not for you to question the will of Almighty Bob. And if you don’t have Faith you’ll Burn, so let me get on with my Propitiating before the ghosts emerge from the Forest and frighten away the Perfectly Normal Beasts!

  ARTHUR: (Arriving) Well, well . . . a space ship.

  OMNES: The Sandwich Maker is come! / Indeed he is limping as it is foretold / Now we will hear words of wisdom and partake of fine viands!

  OLD THRASHBARG: It is a fiery chariot, Sandwich Maker, now back off and let me propish. ‘Mighty Bob, who knowest all things—’

  FX: Airlock door on ship opens – crowd reacts.

  OLD THRASHBARG: (Runs off in fear) What the zark is that? Aieee!

  ARTHUR: Come back, it’s only the airlock opening . . . Oh – my – Bob . . . !

  FX: Feet on ramp.

  TRILLIAN: Hallo, Arthur.

  ARTHUR: Trillian . . .

  TRILLIAN: We thought we’d arrived at some Iron Age backwater. We nearly left again. Lucky you appeared.

  ARTHUR: ‘We’?

  TRILLIAN: Yes. Random?

  RANDOM: (Still inside ship) What now?

  TRILLIAN: Come and meet your father.

  EXT. – HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE BUILDING

  FX: Crash of glass as Colin smashes through it.

  FX: Rocket launcher fired.

  FX: Ford leaps from window – air rushes past.

  FORD PREFECT: Colinnnn—! Under the towel, quick!

  COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: Immediately, Mr Prefect! Hold the corners tightly! We are three hundred feet above ground!

  FX: Colin zips up into towel – arrests his fall – Colin’s servos under strain.

  FORD PREFECT: (Straining) Whuf! Thanks, Colin . . . sheesh! try not to lose altitude—

  COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: (This is hard work) It gives me validation beyond measure to burn out my anti-gravity circuits in your service—

  FORD PREFECT: (Clinging on) Did you see them? Vogons! Vogons really have taken over the Hitchhiker’s Guide Building!

  COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: (Effort continues) Yes! The wonderful new management! The old management was also fabulous, of course, though I’m not sure if I thought so at the time.

  FORD PREFECT: (Strain increasing) Before I reprogrammed you to be happy instead of officious.

  COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: (Effort undiminished) How true. How wonderfully true. How bubblingly, frothingly, burstingly true. And joy, more of them below setting up rocket launchers.

  FX: Rocket whoosh and
huge explosion nearby.

  FORD PREFECT: (Panic and strain, now) Suffering Zarquon! Drop me off at the nearest ledge—

  COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: (At the limits of robot endurance) I burst with fluffy pink bunny love in fulfilling your wish.

  FORD PREFECT: (Verging on exhaustion) Burst later. For now, drop me off.

  COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: (Bursting with overheated circuits) Consider it an ecstasy-inducing joy.

  FX: Colin drops Ford off at the ledge.

  FORD PREFECT: (Huge relief) Dingo’s kidneys. Blacked-out windows? What floor is this?

  COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: (Son of huge relief) Thirteen. Research and Development. Couldn’t you just hug it?

  FORD PREFECT: Hm. R&D used to be on the fifth floor.

  FX: Distant rocket launch. Whooshes past, explodes above them, under:

  COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: Incoming! It’s paradise up here!

  FX: Muffled whirring of wings from within thirteenth floor.

  FX: Another rocket blast.

  FORD PREFECT: We need to be inside, not stuck out here like targets. Break the glass, Colin.

  COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: The windows can’t be broken. The glass was reinforced after the Frogstar attack.

  FORD PREFECT: What Frogstar attack?

  COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: The one that led the engineers to upgrade the windows.

  FORD PREFECT: But we broke out of Vann Harl’s window.

  COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: That is because the engineers were not expecting an impact from inside the building.

  FORD PREFECT: Right. Hm. So, logically: what would the engineers not be expecting someone sitting on the ledge outside a window to do? They wouldn’t be expecting me to be here in the first place. When people design something to be foolproof they usually underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

  COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: What bliss to be shot at whilst stranded on a thirteenth-floor ledge with a complete fool!

  FX: Explosion.

  FORD PREFECT: What’s that?

  COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: A rocket-propelled grenade. Scrumptious!

  FORD PREFECT: No . . . Through the glass . . . something moved. A bird? There’s something in there.