Faster Than Light Entertainment
Created | Updated Mar 6, 2003
Given Douglas Adams' wholly remarkable achievements as a novelist, radio scriptwriter, writer of non-fiction, and hypermedia entrepreneur, it's hardly surprising that his work as a writer for television is sometimes overlooked. But the fact remains that, relatively early in his career, Adams was responsible for scripting a TV comedy series that even today has a big cult following, and that even today - no doubt largely due to its very distinctive, partly-animated 'look' - has an unmistakable and unique style.
The TV series in question is, of course, Monty Python, to which Adams contributed material in 1974. When Adams first rose to celebrity with the success of the radio series and novel of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, both he and the Pythons apparently became heartily sick of this connection constantly being dredged up in every interview he gave, to the point where Adams pre-emptively denied any involvement with the series even though this was not the case. But Adams was later to admit that much of Hitchhiker was inspired by Python, and viewing the 1981 TV version of the Guide in light of his involvement with the group, the debt is clear.
Post-dating the radio series and the novelisation, the TV version of the Guide is actually the most recent (stage and foreign-language radio productions excepted). Shown on at least six occasions across both major BBC TV networks, it remains for many people the 'face' of the Guide: when the arts series The South Bank Show profiled Adams in 1992, it was the cast of the TV version of the Guide they employed to play Adams' creations, the same cast was originally planned to appear in the mid-90s 'illustrated' edition of the novel, and when fans dress up as the characters at conventions, the TV costumes and hairstyles are the ones they recreate. And yet Adams was largely dissatisfied with the TV series, unhappy with the approach of the producer/director, to the point where his refusal to be involved led to the cancellation of a putative second series.
It is true that the TV version of the Guide appears to be a collision between several different styles of television. Most obviously, much of the series resembles the BBC's science-fiction output of the period. This was something Adams already had experience of, having written and script-edited episodes of Doctor Who between 1978 and 1980. But the TV version of the Guide actually looks rather more lavish than any 'straight' BBC SF from the early 80s, with extensive location filming in all but one episode, Rod Lord's distinctive and justly famous animated Guide entries, and a general glossiness and sheen (particular in episode one, filmed as a 'pilot' before the rest of the series).
In another sense, though, the TV Guide fits very well into the rough tradition of British TV science fiction. This tradition is probably best described as Miserabilist, in that it takes a generally pessimistic and cynical view of the universe in which the stories are set. Of the two best known SF series the BBC were making at the same time as the Guide, Blake's 7 was a space opera concerned with the struggles of a group of freedom fighters against a repressive, fascist Federation, concluding with the massacre of every regular character; while Doctor Who, for all its occasional whimsy, took place in a universe that was invariably hostile and threatening (Doctor Who and the TV Guide were in production simultaneously, and an enterprising director for the former series 'borrowed' the sets of the Vogon spaceship for a sequence in the story Warrior's Gate). The Guide gives this philosophy a comic spin, but the humour remains bleak and surprisingly dark. All noble endeavours are doomed to pathetic (even bathetic) failure, and the hazards the characters encounter are more frequently due to pettiness and greed than outright malice. Existential trauma is never far away in the Guide; not for nothing is its most famous character a depressive.
The Monty Python connection is equally strong, or perhaps it could best be described as a Footlights connection, given that both Python and the Guide were products of the same rich vein of undergraduate humour - Adams was a member of the Cambridge Footlights, as were three of the Pythons (so were actors Simon Jones and Mark Wing-Davey). The Guide has the same intellectual affectations as much of the post-Footlights comedy programmes, and also its occasional tendency to lapse into whimsy. What distinguishes the Guide from, say, Red Dwarf, is that the Guide revolves around SF ideas that are genuinely intellectually amusing, whereas the more recent series imports 'straight' SF concepts into a more traditional sitcom format. The rather meandering and picaresque narrative of the Guide is also reminiscent of the revue-based format of many of the post-Footlights productions.
Where the Guide TV series hits difficulties is in its director's conception of the way the series should be played. Adams had hoped his collaborator on the radio series, John Lloyd (later to produce Blackadder) would be involved in some capacity, but instead the series was assigned to Alan JW Bell, a producer/director from a far more mainstream background (Bell has produced the perennially bucolic Last of the Summer Wine - hard to think of a less Guide-like series! - for over two decades). Adams repeatedly complained about the tendency of some people to wheel out the silly voices and funny walks at the first sign of a comic line, and unfortunately Bell seems to have been one of these people: where the radio guide was mostly cool and droll and understated, the TV series is occasionally prone to overacting, slapstick and premeditated and needless zaniness. The recasting of David Dixon as Ford Prefect is shrewd, as he brings the part a mercurial vagueness lacking in Geoffrey McGivern's less focussed, more jovial radio performance, but Sandra Dickinson is shrill and rather irritating as Trillian: she's far more kooky blonde ditz than competent astrophysicist. Radio show veterans Simon Jones, Peter Jones, Mark Wing-Davey and Stephen Moore repeat their roles, successfully for the most part.
Despite its mixed heritage and the conflicting intentions of its creators, the TV version of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a largely successful production: in its best moments, it fizzes with invention and energy, much of it still looks good even by today's standards, and the detail and care put into the production means that it's eminently rewatchable (there are jokes and in-jokes1 embedded in most of the animated and cutaway sequences that it takes more than one viewing to really appreciate). While admittedly jarring, the mainstream comedy stylings that Bell brings to the series provide it with a warmth and amiability the radio series often lacks, and means the darkness and pessimism of much of the humour is softened just enough to be palatable to a wider audience. This may not be the purest or most consistent version of the Guide, but it's one of the most user-friendly.
