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Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the Western Spiral
arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting
this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is
an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended
life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think
audio movies are a pretty neat idea...
And
so they are. This is the second of three radio serials adapted,
co-produced and directed by Dirk Maggs, based on the late
Douglas Adams' best-selling Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
trilogy of books in five parts. This time we concentrate
on book four: So Long and Thanks for all The Fish,
here named (against somebody's better judgement) the Quandary
Phase.
Arthur
Dent returns home on a Teaser spacecraft when he learns that
the Earth has inexplicably popped back into existence, after
the Vogon Constructor Fleet had destroyed it to make way for
a hyperspatial express route.
On
the way to his cottage Arthur is given a lift and instantly
falls in love with a seemingly demented young woman called
Fenchurch, the same person who (just before the supposed mass
hallucination of spacecraft appearing over the Earth and threatening
to destroy it, before disappearing) had risen-up with a revelation
of what had gone wrong with the world, and how people could
finally live together in peace, only to promptly forget it
again. Just before this hallucination all the dolphins had
apparently left the Earth, leaving certain individuals crystal
bowls inscribed with the words "So long and thanks for
all the fish".
Ford
Prefect turns up looking for Arthur, and helps them to leave
on a Xaxisian Robot Ship. Why is the Earth the same and yet
so different? Arthur and Fenchurch have their suspicions and
leave on a quest to learn God's Last Words to His creation.
En route they meet an old friend in Marvin the Paranoid Android,
who these days is on his last legs and mostly armless (geddit?).
It's
been said, not least by Dirk himself, that So Long...
doesn't lend itself so well to the audio medium. Or was it
Mostly Harmless? Anyway, judging by the content of
this one I strongly disagree. Okay, so this is Arthur's love
story. Normally the idea of that alone would send me to exile
on the planet Boredom. And those people hoping for lots of
whizzing around the universe with Zaphod, Trillian, Marvin
and Slartibartfast will be severely disappointed. But this
is a Douglas Adams story and it's all about humour. The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has never been about
jokes, but rather observations on life. In that respect it
reminds me of the classic Smith & Jones Head to Head
sketches.
It
has a much more linear structure than the Tertiary
Phase, which was very good but crammed in so
much that it was in fear of becoming disjointed if you didn't
listen to an episode in one sitting. The plot probably isn't
so strong as Life, the Universe and Everything, but
it's a lot easier to follow. In fact, I personally enjoy the
dialogue exchanges in set scenes much more than the main revelations
of plot points. It's a very English humour, which probably
explains why the film version of the first book doesn't work.
Rob
McKenna, the lorry-driving rain god is great, and the way
that Arthur punctuates his boring conversation with "Are we
there yet?" is priceless. The constant interruptions to Arthur
and Fenchurch's conversation at the station by June Whitfield's
Raffle Woman is also very well handled. "Are you two in love?"
she finally asks. "It's a little hard to tell," says Arthur,
"we haven't had a chance to talk yet!"
There's
plenty of crazy situations in this professionally recorded
two-disc set. I liked the idea of Wonko the Sane sitting on
a beach waiting for the end of the world, not realising it's
already been and gone. Being a drummer himself Dirk Maggs
even finds time to make fun of drummers and bass players too.
I
was enjoying the first disc so much that I felt I would have
to top the mark I gave the Tertiary Phase. However,
I have to reluctantly say that there were a few scenes which
seemed to stem the flow of that enjoyment. The flying scene
and that of the old woman on the plane didn't work, and the
only Ford Prefect scene, before his meeting with Arthur, which
was fun to listen to was when he talks his way out of a gargantuan
bar bill.
Perhaps
the whole production could have been tightened-up a little
by losing one episode, but what do I know?! There's a lot
here to be enjoyed. Even the "...pretty neat idea" has been
updated from digital watches to novelty ring tones! Roll on
the next one.
Ty
Power
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