Douglas Adams’s masterwork, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, started life as a radio serial before moving into most every other medium available. Adams’s other series, which began with Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency was a book first. This October, Dirk Gently joins its elder sibling as a BBC Radio 4 broadcast.
This first series of six 30-minute episodes is adapted from the book and directed by Dirk Maggs (whom Adams had chosen to conclude the Hitchhiker’s saga).
The basis for the story is Dirk Gently himself and his “unshakeable belief in the interconnectedness of all things, but his Holistic Detective Agency’s only success seems to be tracking down missing cats for old ladies. Then Dirk stumbles upon an old friend behaving bizarrely, and he is drawn into a four-billion year old mystery that must be solved if the human race is to avoid immediate extinction.”
“Considered by many Adams fans [including this reporter] to be as funny as, if darker than, Hitchhiker’s, the Dirk Gently novels reflect Adams’s unique and funny take on matters as wide-ranging as consciousness, conservation, man’s place in the cosmos and crime. The first series features everything from quantum physics to missing cats, via Coleridge, Bach, and an Electric Monk.”
Harry Enfield will star as Dirk Gently (in addition to many other television, film, and voice roles, he’s currently the voice of the Travelocity roaming gnome). The rest of the cast includes Billy Boyd (Pippin from the Lord of the Rings movies) as Dirk’s client Richard Macduff; Olivia Colman (Sophie Chapman on Peep Show) as Dirk’s secretary Janice Pearce; Jim Carter (John Faa in the forthcoming The Golden Compass) is Dirk’s nemesis DS Gilks; Andrew Sachs (Manuel from Fawlty Towers) as Professor Reg Chronotis; Felicity Montagu as Susan Way; Robert Duncan as her brother Gordon; Toby Longworth as the Electric Monk; and Michael Fenton Stevens as Michael Wenton Weakes.
The series begins on 3 October, and will be on Wednesday at 6:30PM on BBC Radio 4 (see the web site for schedules and other features).
The entire series will be released as a three-disc CD set on 8 November with a suggested cover price of £15.99. It will also be available as a download from many digital retailers at £10.80. “This commercial release will also contain nearly an hour’s worth of exclusive, extra material not included in the broadcast.”