If you can recall the names Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beetlebrox then you will know this tale very well ...
Cult status radio play by Douglas Adams
First aired on BBC Radio 1978 (or BBC Home Service 1951 - ??? You need to listen to the story to understand this statement!)
If you have never heard of "Hitchhikers Guide" and you like to be absorbed into "alternative, off-beat and just plain strange" Sci Fi tales, this CD box set will certainly open up your mind to new possibilities.
It is difficult to give a brief synopsis but it all began when The Earth had to make way for a hyperspace bypass - two hours later The Earth was no more ("we did give you plenty of notice!) but far more interesting is the character interplays including my favourite, Marvin (The Paranoid Android who was the first attempt at creating an android with emotions - didn't work out so well! "Oh I feel so depressed")
Deep questions (or answers without questions) such as the "Ultimate Question" - the meaning of Life, The Universe and Everything, and the true significance of White Mice and the number 42.
This box set of 4x CD's is the complete original radio broadcasts (Primary Phase - First release) with original cast and of course a top quality BBC recording.
Have plenty of time to explore new horizons? This box set will take up 4 hours of your time to hear the complete box set, 3 hours of radio plays and the last hour (CD #4) tells you all about the "behind the scenes", the extremely creative minds of all those who were involved in the production and of course, Douglas Adams.
DOUGLAS ADAMS - The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (Primary Phase)
Conceived and written by Douglas Adams
BBC - BBC Audio
Cat# 978-1-408-40976-3
2008
UK remastered release
Quad CD case, internal booklet and rear inlay are all in very good condition. NOTE: Since taking the photographs I have changed the front and rear covers due to a crack I didn't initially notice - the box set case is now "like new"
ALL four CD media are in very good condition, visually inspected under a bright white halogen light source and I can see NO scratches or marks on disc's 1,2 & 4 but on disc 3 there are some VERY LIGHT scuff or scratch marks. I then played this release ENTIRELY, ALL discs and there are NO issues with playback at all. Multiple indexing is used so that it is very easily to find a particular section you may wish to hear "over and over" to try and understand what is going on and just repeat some classic moments throughout the story, Marvin is a real gem of "depressing comments" - funny for a machine to be behaving like this and way back in the late 1970's it was a concept not explored before. In fact the whole story broke new ground in "Science Fiction" as we knew it.
CD 1
Episode 1: Fit The First
This Is The Story, You've Got To Build Bypasses, A Strange Coincidence, Six Pints Of Bitter, On This Particular Thursday, Let Them Have Their Fun, People Of Earth - Your Attention Please, I Bought Some Peanuts, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, What The Devil's That?, The Babel Fish, What An Extraordinary Book, Vogon Poetry
Episode 2: Fit The Second
Far Out In The Uncharted Backwaters, Your Very Lives In Your Hands, The Girls? The Leather? The Machismo?, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Perhaps We Died, The Infinite Improbability Drive, 5 To 1 Against And Falling, The Encyclopaedia Galactica, Select Your Own Re-Entry Point, Has The Big Z Finally Flipped? / Glad To Be Of Service
CD 2
Episode 3: Fit the Third
Far Back In The Mists, In Orbit Around It, Arthur Dent Had Basically Assumed, The Five Million Year Old Tape Recording, One of Our Heroes Sustains a Slight Bruise, A Sperm Whale Had Suddenly Been Called, The Mind of a Bowl of Petunias, This is Really Spooky, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Night is Falling, An Important and Popular Fact
Episode 4: Fit the Fourth
Forced to Resort to Astonishment, Life the Universe and Everything, Philosophers, Seven-and-a-Half Million Years Later, So There You Have it, It is of Course Well-known, Welcome to Lunch Earth Creature, We've Got You Covered
CD 3
Episode 5: Fit the Fifth
In The Beginning, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, The End of History Itself, Marvin and the Car Park, The Moment You've All Been Waiting for, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 1, You Can't Control it
Episode 6: Fit the Sixth
The History of Every Major Galactic Civilisation, The Admiral's Flagship, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 2, The Prospect of Death, Far From its Starting Point, The Place is Full of Sarcophagi, Our Planet Was Doomed, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 3, We've Made a Discovery, Q Scores 10
CD 4
Douglas Adams's Guide to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
People of Earth Your Attention Please, Meanwhile a Freak Worm-hole Opens Up, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is a Truly..., The Plot of the Programme Was Basic Enough, But Whilst Voices and Script Had Been Approved, In the Beginning the Series Was Commissioned, Clearly a Multi-Talented Assortment of Human Beings, As Any Magrathean Coastline Designer Will Tell You, It Was So Extraordinary You Just Knew it Was Special, When the Series Began, Very Few People..., Here is What to do if You Want to Get a Script..., The Story so Far: Douglas Adams, a Perfectly..., We Started to Just Think of People That We Might Cast, The Second and Final Series Ended, More Than Twenty Years After Douglas Was First...
