The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The cover of the booklet included with the Collector's Edition CD set release of the first two Hitchhiker's radio series.
Genre	Comic science fiction
Running time	30 minutes
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Home station	BBC Radio 4
Syndicates	NPR, CBC Radio, BFBS
Starring	Simon Jones Geoffrey McGivern Mark Wing-Davey Susan Sheridan Stephen Moore
Created by	Douglas Adams
Written by	Douglas Adams (Series 1–2) John Lloyd (co-writer Series 1) Dirk Maggs (Series 3–6)
Produced by	Simon Brett (Pilot) Geoffrey Perkins (Series 1–2) Bruce Hyman (Series 3–5) Dirk Maggs (Series 3–6) Helen Chattwell (Series 3–6) David Morley (Series 6)
Narrated by	Peter Jones (Series 1–2) William Franklyn (Series 3–5) John Lloyd (Series 6)
Original release	8 March 1978 – 12 April 2018
No. of episodes	32
Audio format	Stereo, surround
Opening theme	"Journey of the Sorcerer" by the Eagles
Website	bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy radio series primarily written by Douglas Adams. It was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Radio 4 in 1978, and afterwards the BBC World Service, National Public Radio in the US and CBC Radio in Canada. The series was the first radio comedy programme to be produced in stereo, and was innovative in its use of music and sound effects, winning a number of awards.^[1]

The series follows the adventures of hapless Englishman Arthur Dent and his friend Ford Prefect, an alien who writes for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a pan-galactic encyclopaedia and travel guide. After Earth is destroyed in the first episode, Arthur and Ford find themselves aboard a stolen spaceship piloted by Zaphod Beeblebrox (Ford's semi-cousin and Galactic President), depressed robot Marvin, and Trillian, the only other human survivor of Earth's destruction.

A pilot programme was commissioned in March 1977, and was recorded by the end of the following June. A second series was commissioned in 1979, transmitted in 1980. Episodes of the first series were re-recorded for release on LP records and audio cassettes and Adams adapted the first series into a best-selling novel in 1979. After the 1980 transmissions of the second radio series, a second novel was published and the first series was adapted for television. This was followed by three further novels, a computer game, and various other media.

Adams considered writing a third radio series to be based on his novel Life, the Universe and Everything in 1993, but the project did not begin until after his death in 2001. Dirk Maggs, with whom Adams had discussed the new series, directed and co-produced the radio adaptation as well as adaptations of the remaining Hitchhiker's Guide novels So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless.^[2] These became the third, fourth and fifth radio series, transmitted in 2004 and 2005.^[3] A sixth series, adapting Eoin Colfer's sixth part in the "trilogy", And Another Thing... was broadcast in March 2018.