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New HHGTTG Radio Show Gets Douglas Adams' Voice
trellick writes "The BBC has not only announced that they are to make radio adaptations to The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy's final three books: Life, The Universe and Everything; So Long and Thanks For All the Fish; and Mostly Harmless. Also, Douglas Adams is to himself provide the voice of Agrajag, the character constantly being reincarnated and dying at the (inadvertent) hands of Arthur Dent, since Adams 'always intended to play the part of Agrajag and recorded himself in the part a few years ago.' Wonderful stuff!"
Hopefully they'll also make available over internet stream, though.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
He did write alot of other stuff than just HHGTTG.
alot of differnt shows that aired only once on the BBC and a huge amount of differnt radio shows on BBC. And of course the Detective Dirk Gently which was always my fav. A long dark tea time of the soul was the first book i read of his and any Hitchers that havent met Dirk yeah u have been missing alot. All quirky and strange but some how simple comedy that is in all the HHGTTG can also be found in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.
Non-smokers die every day --Bill Hicks
You can get all the books in the HG2G series in unabridged audio form, read by the man himself. They were my first purchase on audible.com and they have lived happily on my iPod ever since (in converted mp3 form).
The meek shall inherit the earth, in 3 by 6 plots. - Lazerus Long
Hopefully they'll also make available over internet stream, though.
Quite probably - both live and through my favouritest thing ever, Listen Again.
RealAudio, but pretty high quality...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
In an item about this on BBC radio this evening, the producer explained that the audio they had was of Adams' audition tape (just because he was teh author didn't mean we just got a part). They played a bit and it sounded pretty good. As did William Franklin as the new Voice of The Book.
Only Adams could have the genius and foresight to record the part before he died and when it wasn't planned to dramatise those later books.
Actually, DA was trying to get the BBC to dramatise the books. It didn't come off during his lifetime, but as part of the planning for it, he did a readthrough in which he "acted" all the voices - including Agrajag, and this was taped. They reckoned they had enough to voice the (relatively minor, but very Adams-ish) part. (From BBC radio today).
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
They are.
The article even says that "[Douglas] Adams had been working on a film version for more than a decade, but it had never got past the planning stage." In the posthumous book The Salmon of Doubt it is said that the movie will come out "any decade now".
However, the project finally seems to be getting somewhere. The cast is known, and Slashdot even covered an interview that the screenwriter had with himself.
The movie won't be released tomorrow, though. The first episode of the new radio series will. (Actually, today from where I'm posting.)
If you read the notes to the scripts Douglas Adams said that he was originally called something like "Phartiphukborls". This is documented here.
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
British Summer Time, which is UTC + 1.
You can listen to BBC Radio 4 live on the Internet, and you can listen to the last episode of every programme, which means you'll probably be able to listen to the first episode of the new series all week.
If you're in the United Kingdom, you can actually use your radio to listen to BBC Radio 4. 92 MHz or 95 MHz FM, or 198 kHz AM (LW).
The BBC mini-site for the new series is here, and includes a short making-of video as well as an audio montage of the new stuff.
The first of the new series (The Tertiary Phase) has been completed, and the rest are yet to be recorded.
"inexplicably starts swearing"?
You must have read the censored American version of "Life, The Universe And Everything", and not the real thing.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Even with a probability of infinity minus one that you could find one, the Heart of Gold could manage it, it would be the one Arthur was on, and he'd be picked up a fraction of a second before the bullet hit.
Um... You're misremembering I think. Arthur wasn't killed by the bullet. If you wanted to make sure the earth couldn't be destroyed, you'd have to save the life of the bloke standing BEHIND Arthur, cos it was Agrajag, Arthur moved to one side and it hit him.
That's why Agrajag couldn't kill arthur when they met in his lair when he was wearing his "Revenge" body. Cos arthur hadn't been to the nightclub yet.
Until you've read Last Chance to See, you don't really know Douglas Adams. I think it's his best book, and he agreed. It's brilliant. Sadly, it's often overlooked. It you've managed to miss it (somewhat forgivable, given how poorly marketed it is/was), by all means go grab a copy!