The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Tertiary Phase (Dramatised)

Having listened to some of the episodes on the Radio I was very glad to see HHGTTG in the Audible library and with the full cast from the radio. The reproduction was great, and this Tertiary Phase is added to the other two Phases available via Audible. It is a pity that Audible have not got the original two Radio 4 series and Link episode. This would make the best collection. HHGTTG was a great radio series and left a lot to the imagination - the radio was the original format and the best!

Douglas Adams fans will probably regard me as a philistine but I didn't think was this was a entertaining as Primary Phase. Sorry!

Script-wise this is a pretty good adaptation of the source material, but sadly it fails to capture the charm and innocence of the original instalments.

Gone is the magical audio landscape of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with its curious and hypnotic analogue synth sounds, and it's been replaced by an almost orchestral score; it's not *bad*, but it's not *right*. (That said, the Krikkit song is a showstopper!) Something also appears to have happened to Geoff McGivern's voice in the years since the original series were recorded, and the replacement for Peter Jones just doesn't work.

If you're a fan of the primary and secondary phases (or just an Adams fan in general) this is far more satisfying than the appalling movie adaptation, but it's far from perfect.

(Also note that the version I downloaded on my phone seems to have a stereo mix but the version I downloaded for iTunes seems to be a lo-fi mono mix despite having it set to "enhanced", and therefore is even further from perfect. I shall be querying this with customer support...)

This is Hitchhikers back to its normal madness...

The Krikkit wars, a love interest for Arthur and an assault by the TV version of Ford Prefect. It's complete chaos and more wonderful for it.

There is even an appearance by Douglas Adams.

This marks the first of the 'new' episodes and it is hard to believe there was a twenty-odd year gap between this and secondary phase (also available here at Audible!). It's smooth and crisp and thoroughly lovely.

Get it!

Can't beleve how good Hitchhiker's Guide is an audiobook, (given first impressions of the film)!

Somehow it taps into precisely that opposite sphere of the brain to the one used while driving and gives it loads of interesting titbits to mull over. The production is superb and only 'The Mighty Boosh' is really comparible for sheer imaginative vividness.

This particular episode includes the 'Cricketer' robots (who attack everything in sight), the starship Bistromath (runs on the mathematical principles of a restaurant) and that famous bit where the villain sugests that the, should the universe be explained, it will be replaced by something even more bizarely inexplicable (some say this has happened already).

Furthermore, it stars the inimitable Richard Griffiths and a man who knows the question to the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

Definitely recommended listening!

Fantastic to hear the whole gang back again, well produced compulsive listening.
Bizarre, funny and frighteningly English.
If you have the first two you need the rest....

I love The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - however this sequel is rather silly and very thin. It's put me off getting the Quandary and Quintessential sequels.