GRAMS SIG: ‘JOURNEY OF THE SORCERER’

GRAMS: NARRATOR BACKGROUND

NARRATOR: Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

This planet has, or had, a problem which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

And so the problem remained; and lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been mad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

And then one day, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change a girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything. Sadly however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass and so the idea was lost forever.

Meanwhile, Arthur Dent has escaped from the Earth in the company of a friend of his who has unexpectedly turned out to be from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. His name is Ford Prefect, for reasons which are unlikely to become clear again at the moment, and they are both in dead trouble with the captain of a Vogon spaceship.

VOGON: So, Earthlings, I present you with a simple choice. Think carefully for you hold your very lives in your hands. Now choose! Either die in the vacuum of space, or . . .

GRAMS: DRAMATIC CHORD (SHRUBBERY)

VOGON: . . . Tell me how good you thought my poem was!

FORD: I liked it.

VOGON: (Relaxing) Oh good.

ARTHUR: Oh yes, I thought that some of the metaphysical imagery was really particularly effective.

VOGON: (Prompting) Yes?

ARTHUR: Oh . . . and, er, interesting rhythmic devices too which seemed to counterpoint the . . . e . . .

FORD: . . . counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the . . . er . . .

ARTHUR: Humanity of the . . . e . . .

FORD: Vogonity.

ARTHUR: (Getting desperate) Vogonity, sorry, of the poet’s compassionate soul which contrives through the medium of the verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other, and one is left with a profound and vivid insight int . . . into . . .

FORD: . . . into whatever it was the poem was about! (Aside) Well done Arthur, that was very good.

VOGON: So what you’re saying is that I write poetry because underneath my mean, callous, heartless exterior I really just want to be loved. Is that right?

FORD: (Laughing nervously) Well I mean, yes, don’t we all, deep down, you know . . . er . . .

VOGON: No, well you’re completely wrong. I just write poetry to throw my mean, callous, heartless exterior into sharp relief: I’m going to throw you off the ship anyway. Guard! Take the prisoners to number three airlock and throw them out.

F/X: THEY ARE GRABBED AND PUT UP A STRUGGLE. THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES DURING ALL THE ENSUING DIALOGUE

FORD: You can’t throw us off into deep space, we’re trying to write a book!

VOGON GUARD: Resistance is useless.

ARTHUR: I don’t want to die now, I’ve still got a headache! I don’t want to go to heaven with a headache, I’d be all cross and wouldn’t enjoy it.

(They are being urged further and further away)

FORD: You can’t do this!

VOGON: Why not, you puny creature?

FORD: Oh ‘Why not?’ ‘Why not?’ Does there have to be a reason for everything? Why don’t you just let us go on a mad impulse? Go on, live a little, surprise yourse . . .

F/X: HE IS CUT OFF BY THE DOOR HUMMING CLOSED

VOGON: (To himself)‘. . counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor . . .’ Huh, death’s too good for them.

F/X: CROSSFADE TO FORD AND ARTHUR STRUGGLING AS THEY ARE DRAGGED DOWN A CORRIDOR

ARTHUR: Ow, let go of me you brute!

FORD: Don’t you worry, I’ll think of something.

VOGON GUARD: (Shouting: see the Coarse Actor’s Guide to Space Ship Guards) Resistance is useless!

ARTHUR: I woke up this morning and thought I’d have a nice relaxed day, do a bit of reading, brush the dog . . . it’s now just after four in the afternoon and I’m already being thrown out of an alien spaceship five light years from the smoking remains of the Earth!

FORD: All right, just stop panicking.

ARTHUR: Who said anything about panicking? This is still just culture shock. You wait till I’ve settled down in the situation and found my bearings a bit. Then I’ll start panicking.

FORD: Arthur, you’re getting hysterical, shut up!

VOGON GUARD: (Still shouting) Resistance is useless!

FORD: You can shut up as well!

VOGON GUARD: Resistance is useless!

FORD: Oh give it a rest . . . do you really enjoy this sort of thing?

VOGON GUARD: Resistance is . . . What do you mean?

FORD: I mean does it give you a full satisfying life? Stomping around, shouting, pushing people out of spaceships?

VOGON GUARD: Well, the hours are good.

FORD: They’d have to be.

VOGON GUARD: But now you come to mention it . . . uppose most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy. Except some of the shouting I quite like. (Shouts) Resistance is . . .

FORD: Sure, yes, you’re good at that, I can tell. But if it’s mostly lousy then why do you do it? What is it? The girls? The leather? The machismo?

VOGON GUARD: Well . . . er, I don’t know, I think I just sort of . . . do it really.

FORD: There Arthur, you think you’ve got problems . . .

ARTHUR: Yeah, this guy’s still half throttling me . . .

FORD: Yeah, but try and understand his problem. Here he is, poor lad, his entire life’s work is stamping around, throwing people off spaceships . . .

VOGON GUARD: And shouting . . .

FORD: . . . and shouting, sure . . . and he doesn’t even know why he’s doing it.

ARTHUR: Sad. (Followed by suppressed grunt of pain)

VOGON GUARD: Well, now you put it like that I suppose . . .

FORD: Good lad . . .

VOGON GUARD: But all right, so what’s the alternative?

FORD: Well, stop doing it of course.

VOGON GUARD: Mmmmmmmmmm . . . well, doesn’t sound that great to me.

FORD: Now wait a minute, that’s just the start. There’s more to it than what you see . . .

VOGON GUARD: No, I think if it’s all the same to you I’d better just get you both shoved into this airlock and then go and get on with some other bits of shouting I’ve got to do.

FORD: But come on .. . now look (Renewed struggling)

ARTHUR: Ow, stop that . . !

FORD: Hang on, there’s music and art and things to tell you about yet! Aaggh!

VOGON GUARD: (Shouting) Resistance is useless! (Less shouty) You see, if I keep it up I can eventually get promoted to senior shouting officer, and there aren’t usually many vacancies for non-shouting and non-pushing-people-about officers, so I think I’d better stick to what I know. But thanks for taking an interest. ’Bye now.

ARTHUR: Stop, don’t do it.

FORD: (Desperate) No, listen, there’s a whole world you don’t know anything about . . . here, how about this . . . ‘Da da da Dum’ (First bar of Beethoven’s Fifth) Doesn’t that stir anything in you?

F/X: AIRLOCK DOOR OPENS

VOGON GUARD: ‘Bye, I’ll mention what you said to my aunt.

F/X: AIRLOCK DOOR CLOSES

FORD: Potentially bright lad I thought.

ARTHUR: We’re trapped now, aren’t we?

FORD: Errrrr . . . yes, we’re trapped.

ARTHUR: Well, didn’t you think of anything?

FORD: Oh yes, but unfortunately it rather involved being on the other side of the airtight hatchway they’ve just sealed behind us.

ARTHUR: So what happens next?

FORD: The hatchway in front of us will open automatically in a moment, and we’ll shoot out into deep space and asphyxiate in about thirty seconds.

ARTHUR: So this is it. We’re going to die.

FORD: Yes . . . except . . . No! Wait a minute, what’s this switch?

ARTHUR: What? Where?

FORD: No, I was only fooling. We are going to die after all.

ARTHUR: You know, it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.

FORD: Why, what did she tell you?

ARTHUR: I don’t know, I didn’t listen.

FORD: Huh! Terrific.

F/X: CLICK HUM WHHHOOOOOSHHHHHHH AS THE AIRLOCK DOOR OPENS AND THEY ARE EXPELLED. THE SOUND DOESN’T SO MUCH FADE AS ‘EMPTY’ BECAUSE SOUND DOESN’T CARRY IN A VACUUM AND SO IT GETS DISPERSED WITH THE ESCAPING AIR

GRAMS: NARRATOR BACKGROUND MUSIC

NARRATOR: The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a truly remarkable book. The introduction starts like this: ‘Space’, it says, ‘is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the street to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space. Listen . . .’ And so on.

. . . After a while the style settles down a bit and it starts telling you things you actually need to know, like the fact that the fabulously beautiful planet Bethselamin is now so worried about the cumulative erosion caused by ten million visiting tourist a year, that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete whilst on the planet is surgically removed from your bodyweight when you leave: so every time you go to the lavatory there it is vitally important to get a receipt.

In the entry in which it talks about dying of asphyxiation thirty seconds after being thrown out of a spaceship it goes on to say that what with space being the size it is, the chances of being picked up by another craft within those seconds are two to the power of two hundred and sixty seven thousand seven hundred and nine to one against which, by a staggering coincidence was also the telephone number of an Islington flat where Arthur once went to a very good party and met a very nice girl whom he entirely failed to get off with. Though the planet Earth, the Islington flat and the telephone have all now been demolished, it is comforting to reflect that they are in some small way commemorated by the fact that twenty nine seconds later Ford and Arthur were in fact rescued.

F/X: POSITIVE MONTAGE OF SOUND. AIRLOCK DOOR OPENING AND THEN CLOSING. RUSH OF AIR. (GASPING AND GURGLING FROM FORD AND ARTHUR) THIS IS OVERLAID WITH THE SOUND OF SEVERAL ELECTRONIC COMPUTER VOICES CHATTERING SEMI-COMPREHENSIBLY SAYING THINGS LIKE ‘Infinity minus two seconds, Infinity minus four seconds, Infinity minus four seconds . . . Alien body intake at entry bay two. High Improbability Factor . . . checking. Improbability Co-efficient Infinity minus one. Co-efficient factorable. Factorise! Alien life forms carbonbased. Intake sector Galactic Co-ordinate ZZ9 plural z alpha . . .’

THIS IS REALLY A WILD FLURRY OF SOUND WHICH QUICKLY DIES AWAY INTO THE BACKGROUND, AS THE DIALOGUE BEGINS. SOON AFTERWARDS A SLOW QUIET WASH OF SOUND BUILDS UP BEHIND THE VOICES, PARTLY REFLECTING WHAT THEY SAY THEY CAN SEE AROUND THEM, BUT ALSO WITH MANY RANDOM ELEMENTS WITH AN UNREAL DREAMLIKE QUALITY, NOT UNLIKE PARTS OF REVOLUTION NO. NINE FROM THE BEATLES WHITE ALBUM. ALL THE SOUNDS CHANGE IMPERCEPTIBLY BEFORE IT’S REALLY POSSIBLE TO HEAR EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE, SO FOR INSTANCE THE SOUND OF THE WASHING OF SEA WAVES COULD ALMOST BE ASTHMATIC BREATHING INSTEAD, AND THE SOUND OF TRAFFIC IN THE STREET COULD ALMOST BE GALLOPING HOOVES BUT ISN’T

(NB: It’s worth spending a little time getting the tape right because it will be useful on occasions in the future.)

FORD: (Gasping) There . . . you . . . are. I told you . . . I’d think of something . . .

ARTHUR: Oh, sure. (Gasp)

FORD: Bright idea . . . of mine . . . to find a . . . passing spaceship . . . and get rescued by it . . .

ARTHUR: Oh come on . . . the chances against it were astronomical.

FORD: Don’t knock it . . . it worked . . . Now . . . where are we?

ARTHUR: Well I hardly like to say this, but it looks like the sea front at Southend.

FORD: God I’m relieved to hear you say that.

ARTHUR: Why?

FORD: Because I thought I must be going mad.

ARTHUR: Perhaps we weren’t rescued after all. Perhaps we died.

FORD: What’s that meant to mean?

ARTHUR: When I was young I used to have this nightmare about dying. I used to lie awake at night screaming. All my schoolfriends went to heaven or hell, and I was sent to Southend.

FORD: Perhaps we’d better ask somebody what’s going on. How about that man over there?

ARTHUR: The one with the five heads crawling up the wall?

FORD: Er . . . yes (Only a suspicion of doubt in his voice)

ARTHUR: Sir, excuse me, er . . . excuse me . . .

F/X: (ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE!) WILD TRUMPETING AND BELLOWING LIKE AN ELEPHANT OR SOMETHING

ARTHUR: You know, if this is Southend, there’s something very odd about it . . .

FORD: You mean the way the sea stays steady as a rock and the buildings keep washing up and down? Yes, I thought that was odd . . .

F/X: A GIRL’S VOICE CUTS THROUGH THE INCREASINGLY DREAM-LIKE QUALITY OF EVERYTHING GOING ON. THERE IS A SLIGHT P.A. QUALITY TO IT, BUT IT IS VERY CLEAR AND PROJECTED. THE GIRL’S NAME IS TRILLIAN

TRILLIAN: Two to the power of one hundred thousand to one against and falling . . .

ARTHUR: What was that?

FORD: Sounds like a measurement of probabilit . . . hey that couldn’t mean . . . no.

ARTHUR: What?

FORD: I’m not sure, but it means we definitely are on some kind of spaceship.

ARTHUR: Southend seems to be melting away . . . the stars are swirling . . . a dust bowl . . . snow . . . my legs drifting off into the sunset . . . hell my left arm’s come off too, how am I going to operate my digital watch now? Ford, you’re turning into a penguin, stop it.

TRILLIAN: Two to the power of seventy-five thousand to one against and falling . . .

FORD: (Shouting. There is a very slight quack to his voice) Hey, who are you? Where are you? What’s going on and is there any way of stopping it?

TRILLIAN: Please relax, you are perfectly safe.

FORD: That’s not the point! The point is that I am now a perfectly safe penguin and my colleague here is rapidly running out of limbs!

ARTHUR: It’s all right, I’ve got them back now.

TRILLIAN: Two to the power of fifty thousand to one against and falling.

ARTHUR: Admittedly, they’re longer than I usually like them, but . . .

FORD: Isn’t there anything you feel you ought to be telling us?!

TRILLIAN: Welcome to the Starship Heart of Gold. Please do not be alarmed by anything you see or hear around you. You are bound to feel some initial ill-effects as you have been rescued from certain death at an improbability level of two to the power of two hundred and sixty-seven thousand, seven hundred and nine to one against, possibly much higher. We are now cruising at a level of two to the power of twenty-five thousand to one against and falling, and we will be restoring normality as soon as we are sure what is normal anyway, thank you. Two to the power of twenty thousand to one against and falling.

FORD: Arthur, this is fantastic, we’ve been picked up by a ship with the new Infinite Improbability Drive, this is really incredible, Arthur . . . Arthur, what’s happening?

F/X: LOUD GIBBERING OF MONKEYS

ARTHUR: Ford, there’s an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they’ve worked out.

GRAMS: NARRATOR BACKGROUND

NARRATOR: The Infinite Improbability Drive is a wonderful new method of crossing interstellar distances in a few seconds, without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace. The principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability by simply hooking the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 sub-meson brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea) were of course well understood, and such generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess’s under-garments simultaneously leap one foot to the left, in accordance with the theory of indeterminacy. Many respectable physicists said that they weren’t going to stand for that sort of thing, partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn’t get invited to those sort of parties. Another thing they couldn’t stand was the perpetual failure they encountered in trying to construct a machine which could generate the infinite improbability field needed to flip a spaceship between the furthest stars, and in the end they grumpily announced that such a machine was virtually impossible. Then one day, a student who had been left to sweep up the lab after a particularly unsuccessful party found himself reasoning this way: if such a machine is a virtual impossibility then it must logically be a finite improbability. So all I have to do in order to make one is to work out exactly how improbable it is, then feed that figure into the finite improbability generator, give it a fresh cup of really hot tea and turn it on. He did this, and was rather startled to discover that he had managed to create the long sought after infinite improbability generator out of thin air. It startled him even more when, just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute’s Prize for Extreme Cleverness, he got lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn’t stand was a smartass.

TRILLIAN: Five to one against and falling . . . four to one against and falling . . . three to one . . . two . . . one . . . Probability factor of one to one . . . we have normality . . . I repeat we have normality . . . anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem. Please relax. You will be sent for soon.

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX: Who are they, Trillian?

TRILLIAN: Just a couple of guys we picked up in open space. Sector ZZ9 plural Z alpha.

ZAPHOD: Yeah, well that’s a very sweet thought, Trillian, but do you really think it’s wise under the circumstances? I mean here we are on the run and everything, we’ve got the police of half the Galaxy after us and we stop to pick up hitch-hikers. OK, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, eh?

TRILLIAN: Zaphod, they were floating unprotected in open space . . . you didn’t want them to die did you?

ZAPHOD: Well, not as such no, but . . .

TRILLIAN: Anyway I didn’t pick them up. The ship did it all by itself.

ZAPHOD: What . . .?

TRILLIAN: Whilst we were in Improbability Drive.

ZAPHOD: That’s incredible.

TRILLIAN: No, just very, very improbable. Look don’t worry about the aliens, they’re just a couple of guys I expect. I’ll send the robot down to check them out. Hey, Marvin . . .

MARVIN: (Lugubrious robot voice) I think you ought to know I’m feeling very depressed.

ZAPHOD: Oh God . . .

TRILLIAN: (Nicely) Well here’s something to occupy you and keep your mind off things.

MARVIN: It won’t work, I have an exceptionally large mind.

TRILLIAN: Marvin!

MARVIN: All right, what do you want me to do?

TRILLIAN: Go down to number two entry bay and bring the two aliens up here under surveillance.

MARVIN: Just that?

TRILLIAN: Yes.

MARVIN: I won’t enjoy it.

ZAPHOD: She’s not asking you to enjoy it – just do it will you?

MARVIN: All right, I’ll do it.

ZAPHOD: Good . . . great . . . thank you.

MARVIN: I’m not getting you down at all am I?

TRILLIAN: No, no, Marvin, that’s just fine, really.

MARVIN: I wouldn’t like to think I was getting you down.

TRILLIAN: No, don’t worry about that, you just act as comes naturally and everything will be fine.

MARVIN: You’re sure you don’t mind?

ZAPHOD: No, no, it’s all just part of life.

MARVIN: Life! Don’t talk to me about life.

F/X:  MARVIN EXITS. DOOR HUMS SHUT

TRILLIAN: I don’t think I can stand that robot much longer, Zaphod.

GRAMS: NARRATOR BACKGROUND

NARRATOR: (Music under) The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. The Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines robot as ‘Your plastic pal who’s fun to be with’. The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy defines the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as a ‘bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes’ with a footnote to the effect that the editors would welcome applications for anyone interested in taking over the post of robotics correspondent. Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that fell through a Time Warp from a thousand years in the future defined the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as a ‘bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came.’

FORD: I think this ship is brand new Arthur.

ARTHUR: How can you tell? Have you got some exotic devices for measuring the age of metal?

FORD: No, I just found this sales brochure lying on the floor. ‘The Universe can be yours . . .’ Ah, and look, I was right . . . ‘Sensational new breakthrough in improbability physics. As the ship’s drive reaches infinite improbability, it passes through every conceivable point in every conceivable universe almost simultaneously. You select your own re-entry point. Be the envy of other major Governments’. This is big league stuff.

ARTHUR: It looks a hell of a lot better than that dingy Vogon ship. This is my idea of a spaceship, all gleaming white, flashing lights, everything. What happens if I press this button?

FORD: I wouldn’t . . .

F/X: ALMOST SIMULTANEOUSLY WITH FORD SAYING ‘I WOULDN’T’ ELECTRONIC BEEP

ARTHUR: Oh.

FORD: What happened?

ARTHUR: A sign lit up saying ‘Please do not press this button again’.

FORD: They make a big thing of the ship’s cybernetics. ‘A new generation of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation robots and computers, with the new GPP feature.’

ARTHUR: GPP? What’s that?

FORD: Er . . . It says Genuine People Personalities.

ARTHUR: Sounds ghastly.

F/X: DOOR HUMS OPEN WITH A SORT OF OPTIMISTIC SOUND

MARVIN: It is.

ARTHUR: W . . . What?

MARVIN: Ghastly. It all is – absolutely ghastly. Just don’t even talk about it. Look at this door. ‘All the doors in this spacecraft have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done!’

F/X: DOOR CLOSES WITH A SATISFIED SIGH

MARVIN: Hateful, isn’t it? Come on I’ve been ordered to take you up to the Bridge. Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they tell me to take you up to the Bridge. Call that job satisfaction? ’Cause I don’t.

FORD: Excuse me, which government owns this ship?

MARVIN: You watch this door. It’s about to open again. I can tell by the intolerable air of smugness it suddenly generates.

MARVIN: Come on.

F/X: DOOR OPENS AND SAYS ‘GLAD TO BE OF SERVICE!’

MARVIN: Thank you, the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

F/X: DOOR CLOSES SAYING ‘YOU’RE WELCOME’

FORD: Which government owns this ship?

MARVIN: ‘Let’s build robots with Genuine People Personalities’ they said. So they tried it out with me. I’m a personality prototype. You can tell, can’t you?

FORD: (Embarrassed) Er . . .

MARVIN: I hate that door. I’m not getting you down am I?

FORD: Which government owns this ship?

MARVIN: No government owns it. It’s been stolen.

FORD AND ARTHUR: Stolen?

MARVIN: (Sarcastically imitating them) ‘Stolen?’

FORD: Who by?

MARVIN: Zaphod Beeblebrox.

FORD: (Extremely astonished) Zaphod Beeblebrox?

MARVIN: Sorry did I say something wrong? Pardon me for breathing – which I never do anyway so I don’t know why I bother to say it, oh God I’m so depressed. Here’s another of those self-satisfied doors. Life, don’t talk to me about life . . .

(Fading out)

ARTHUR: No one even mentioned it.

FORD: Really, Zaphod Beeblebrox?

F/X: ON THE BRIDGE. THE FOLLOWING IS OBVIOUSLY HEARD ON A RADIO. WE CAN HEAR ZAPHOD AND TRILLIAN REACTING WITH THE OCCASIONAL LAUGH

RADIO: . . . and news reports brought to you here on the sub-ether wave band, broadcasting around the Galaxy around the clock. And we’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere . . . and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys. And of course, the big news story tonight is the sensational theft of the new Improbability Drive prototype ship, by none other than Zaphod Beeblebrox. And the question everyone’s asking is . . . has the Big Z finally flipped? Beeblebrox, the man who invented the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, ex-confidence trickster, part-time Galactic President, once described by Eccentrica Gallumbits as the Best Bang since the Big One, and recently voted the Worst Dressed Sentient Being in the Universe for the seventh time running . . . has he got an answer this time? We asked his private brain care specialist, Gag Halfrunt.

GAG HALFRUNT: Well look, Zaphod’s just this guy you know . . .

F/X: RADIO SWITCHED OFF

ZAPHOD: What did you turn it off for Trillian?

TRILLIAN: Zaphod, I’ve just thought of something.

ZAPHOD: Yeah?

TRILLIAN: We picked those couple of guys up in sector . . . Zaphod, please take your hand off me. And the other one. Thank you and the other one.

ZAPHOD: I grew that one specially for you, Trillian, you know that? Took me six months but it was worth every minute.

TRILLIAN: . . . We picked them up in Sector ZZ9 plural Z alpha. Does that mean anything to you?

ZAPHOD: On the whole, no.

TRILLIAN: It’s where you originally picked me up. Let me show it to you on the screen.

F/X: ELECTRONICS

TRILLIAN: Right there.

ZAPHOD: Hey, right. I don’t believe it. How the hell did we come to be there?

TRILLIAN: Improbability Drive. We pass through every point in the Universe, you know that.

ZAPHOD: Yes, but picking them up there is just too strange a coincidence. I want to work this out. Computer!

EDDIE THE COMPUTER: (Bright, brash, mid atlantic) Hi there!

ZAPHOD: Oh God.

COMPUTER: I want you to know that whatever your problem, I am here to help you solve it.

ZAPHOD: Er, look, I think I’ll just use a piece of paper.

COMPUTER: Sure thing, I understand. If you ever need . . .

ZAPHOD: Shut up!

COMPUTER: OK, OK . . .

ZAPHOD: Trillian, listen. The ship picked them up all by itself, right?

TRILLIAN: Right.

ZAPHOD: So that already gives us a high improbability factor. It picked them up in that particular space sector, which gives us another high improbability factor. Plus – they were not wearing spacesuits, so we picked them up during a crucial thirty second period.

TRILLIAN: I’ve got a note of that factor here.

ZAPHOD: Put it all together and we have a total improbability of. . . well, it’s pretty vast but it’s not infinite. At what point did we actually pick them up?

TRILLIAN: At infinite improbability level.

ZAPHOD: Which leaves us a very large improbability gap still to be filled. Look, they’re on their way up here now aren’t they, with that bloody robot? Can we pick them up on any monitor cameras?

TRILLIAN: I should think so.

F/X: ELECTRONIC SWITCHES. WE OVERHEAR A SNATCH OF DIALOGUE FROM FORD, ARTHUR AND MARVIN OVER A SMALL SPEAKER

MARVIN: . . . and then of course I’ve got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my leftside . . .

ARTHUR: Is that so?

MARVIN: Oh yes. I mean I’ve asked for them to be replaced but no one ever listens . . .

ARTHUR: I can imagine.

TRILLIAN: (Slightly excited) Oh God, I don’t believe it . . .

FORD: (To himself) Well, well, well, Zaphod Beeblebrox.

ZAPHOD: (Wildly excited) I don’t believe it! This is just too amazing! Look, Trillian, I’ll just handle this . . . is anything wrong?

TRILLIAN: I think I’ll just wait in the cabin. I’ll be back in a minute.

ZAPHOD: Oh, this is going to be great. I’m going to be so unbelievably cool about it it would flummox a Vegan Snow Lizard. This is terrific. What real cool. Several million points out of ten for style.

TRILLIAN: Well, you enjoy yourself, Zaphod. I don’t see what’s so great myself. I’ll go and listen for the police on the sub-ether wave band. (She exits)

ZAPHOD: Right. Which is the most nonchalant chair to be discovered working at. O.K.

F/X: DOOR OPENS SAYING ‘GLAD TO BE OF SERVICE’

MARVIN: I suppose you’ll want to see the aliens now. Do you want me to sit in a corner and rust or just fall apart where I’m standing?

ZAPHOD: Show them in please, Marvin. (Then with great cool) Ford, hi, how are you? Glad you could drop in.

FORD: (Trying to out-cool him) Zaphod, great to see you, you’re looking well. The extra arm suits you. Nice ship you’ve stolen.

ARTHUR: (Astonished) You mean you know this guy?

FORD: Know him! He’s . . . Oh, Zaphod, this is a friend of mine, Arthur Dent. I saved him when his planet blew up.

ZAPHOD: Oh sure, hi, Arthur, glad you could make it.

FORD: And, Arthur, this is my . . .

ARTHUR: (Sharply) We’ve met.

FORD: (Astonished) What?

ZAPHOD: (Guilty start of surprise) Oh, er . . . have we? Hey . . .

FORD: What do you mean you’ve met? This is Zaphod Beeblebrox from Betelgeuse Five you know, not bloody Martin Smith from Croydon.

ARTHUR: I don’t care, we’ve met, haven’t we Zaphod, or should I say, Phil?

FORD: What?

ZAPHOD: You’ll have to remind me, I’ve a terrible memory for species. Hey, Ford . . .

ARTHUR: (Doggedly) It was at a party.

ZAPHOD: I rather doubt it.

FORD: Cool it will you, Arthur?

ARTHUR: A party six months ago, on Earth, England, London.

ZAPHOD: Er . . .

ARTHUR: Islington.

ZAPHOD: Oh, er . . . that party.

FORD: Zaphod, you don’t mean to say you’ve been on that miserable little planet as well, do you?

ZAPHOD: No, of course not. Well, I may just have dropped in briefly . . . on my way somewhere.

FORD: What is all this, Arthur?

ARTHUR: At this party there was a girl. I’d had my eye on her for weeks . . . beautiful, charming, devastatingly intelligent, everything I’d been saving myself up for, and just when I’d finally managed to get her for myself for a few tender moments this friend of yours barges up and says ‘Hey doll, is this guy boring you, come and talk to me, I’m from a different planet’. I never saw her again.

FORD: Zaphod?

ARTHUR: Yes, he only had the two arms and the one head and he called himself Phil, but . . .

F/X: DOOR OPENS

TRILLIAN: . . . but you must admit that he did actually turn out to be from a different planet, Arthur.

ARTHUR: Good God, it’s her! Tricia McMillan, what are you doing here?

TRILLIAN: Same as you, Arthur, I hitched a ride. After all, with a degree in maths and another in astrophysics it was either that or back to the dole queue on Monday. Sorry I missed that Wednesday lunch date, but I was in a black hole all morning.

ZAPHOD: Oh God . . . Ford. This is Trillian, hi, Trillian, this is my semi-cousin Ford, who shares three of the same mothers as me, hi. Trillian, is this sort of thing going to happen every time we use the Infinite Improbability Drive?

TRILLIAN: Very probably I’m afraid.

ZAPHOD: Zaphod Beeblebrox, this is a very large drink. Hi.

NARRATOR: Will our heroes be able to enjoy a nice, relaxed evening at last? How will they cope with their new social roles? Will they survive the deadly missile attack which is launched on them three minutes into the next episode? Find out in next week’s exciting instalment of the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

GRAMS: SIG. JOURNEY OF THE SORCERER

ANNOUNCER: And that programme will be repeated through a time warp on the BBC Home Service in 1951.

EDDIE THE COMPUTER: Hi there, this is Eddie your shipboard computer, and I just want to mention here that we are now moving into orbit around the legendary planet of Magrathea. Sorry to interrupt your social evening. Have a good time.

FOOTNOTES

This show was produced on 23 November 1977, and I took over as producer from here on, since Simon Brett had departed for London Weekend Television. I felt very much as if I was going in at the deep end, having little idea of how the shows were going to develop. But I was consoled by the fact that over a vigorous Greek meal the night before the recording Douglas admitted that he had no more idea than I had. Paddy Kingsland had also departed on attachment to the BBC children’s department which he must have regarded as a step up from Hitch-Hiker’s! For the rest of the first series the Radiophonic effects and voice treatments were provided by Dick Mills with the assistance of Harry Parker. The programmes were made in the Paris studio by Alick Hale-Munro and his crack team of hardened drinkers.

Marvin has probably become the most popular character to appear in the Guide, going on to make his own disco record and have his own Depreciation society which can be found at 2, Whitchurch Lane E1. It’s curious to think that originally he was only intended to appear in this one episode, since Douglas was of the opinion that we’d done the joke of the depressed robot and should now press on to other wilder and more wonderful jokes. He probably became a regular character because of Stephen Moore’s superb performance, so it seems important to note here that while you can make a voice sound like a robot by putting it through a harmonizer and give it a downward inflection to help it sound miserable, none of this adds up to much without the actor’s performance. All the technical jiggery pokery can do is give the whole thing a bit of gloss. Originally the character was called Marshall, since he was heavily based on Andrew Marshall (about whom see Douglas’s introduction). The name was changed in case it sounded too much like a character out of a Western. Andrew Marshall himself is based on Eeyore in Winnie-the-Pooh, who is in turn based on . . . and so on back to the creation. Marvin’s hissing and clanking walk was provided from various bits of machinery and kept on a little loop of tape which was forever being lost or accidentally trodden on, something Marvin would no doubt have appreciated.

Trillian was played by Susan Sheridan and the name was chosen because, in Douglas’ words ‘it was a nickname that also sounded like an alien name’. In earlier drafts the character was called Goophic, before that Smoodle and before that she was a man!

Eddie the Computer was a mixture of a ring modulator, an ordinary teleprinter and David Tate. David is one of the most versatile voice-over people in the country, and proved invaluable in a series which required hundreds of talking computers, lifts, robots and mice.

Mark Wing-Davey thinks he may have been cast as Zaphod Beeblebrox because of a lingering reputation as a university hippy, but it probably had more to do with seeing him in the role of a disreputable media trendy in the TV show ‘The Glittering Prizes’. Mark remembers that he was originally booked for just one episode, with the possibility of another. This had nothing to do with doubts about his ability to play the part, it was simply that the shows were being written as we went along and we had no idea which characters would survive into another episode.

The line about his extra head was put in as little extra throwaway joke which was to cause enormous headaches (sic) when the show transferred to television. The extra head cost about twice as much as Mark himself (though he thinks that was fair enough because it gave a better performance than he did!) In fact much of the time the head didn’t function properly and used to loll on his shoulder looking up at him, often ending up being operated by a man with his hand up Mark’s back.

Bill Wallis had to dip into his memory bag to recreate Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, and David Tate doubled up as the Vogon Guard.

Ford meeting Zaphod

Many people have asked me angrily why it is that Zaphod Beeblebrox instantly greets Ford as Ford when I had earlier stated quite clearly that he had only changed his name to Ford Prefect when he came to Earth.

It was very simple. Just before arriving he registered his new name officially at the Galactic Nomenclaturoid Office, where they had the technology to unpick his old name from the fabric of space/time and thread the new one in its place, so that to all intents and purposes his name always had been and always would be Ford Prefect. I included a footnote explaining this in the first Hitch-Hiker book, but it was cut because it was so dull. [DNA]

The bizarre appearance of the word ‘Shrubbery’ (page 35) has no bearing whatsoever on the script. It was simply a note I scribbled in the margin (which was then conscientiously typed up in the script) observing a passing similarity to the moment in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the Knights of Ni ask Arthur to bring them a shrubbery. We were all surprised to see it appear, as I am sure you are now.

With relation to the effects note on page 40, more than a little time was spent and needless to say it was of absolutely no use in the future. Suffice it to say that the time originally allocated for making the effects for the entire show was spent on this one effect, and is full of lots of little things which probably seemed terribly interesting at the time but which are now impossible to recognize.

Douglas has added the following note on the Improbability Drive itself.

The Improbability Drive

This came about through watching a TV programme about Judo.

Since I had no grand plan in writing Hitch-Hiker’s but was simply making it up as I went along, I often painted myself into the most terrible corners. At one point I had carelessly thought that it might be fun to have Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect thrown out of the airlock of a Vogon ship without spacesuits, just to see what would happen. Unfortuanately, of course, if anything was going to happen, I was going to have to think of it. I got very stuck.

Every way out of the corner seemed to amount to nothing more than ‘with one bound Jack was free’ – which was a cop-out. There’s no point in making a big song and dance about what a terrible predicament your characters are in if you just cheat your way out of it.

I began to think that maybe we could just finish the series there and perhaps play light music for the remaining four and a half episodes which would save a lot of time and headaches all round, but not – and here was the crunch – pay my rent. They had to be rescued.

The problem was the sheer improbability of every solution I came up with. This was where the judo programme that you were beginning to wonder if I had forgotten about came into it.

If you have a problem, said the instructor on the programme, such as for instance a nineteen stone Jap in pyjamas trying to beat you into a pulp, the trick is to use this problem to solve itself. If you can trip or throw or deflect the Jap as he hurtles towards you, then the fact that he weighs nineteen stone quickly becomes his worry instead of yours.

So – I thought – if my problem is one of improbability, let’s use Improbability to solve the problem, so just for the heck of it I invented the Infinite Improbability Drive, and gave myself a whole new thing to write about. If you can’t see precisely how that connects to nineteen stone Japanese men in pyjamas, then I have to confess that that’s worrying me too at the moment. (DNA)

The Islington telephone number (page 39) is a real number, as several people have put to the test. It is in fact the number of the flat where Douglas wrote much of the first series, but the person who lives there now has nothing to do with Hitch-Hiker’s so please stop pestering him.

The joke about ‘I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young’ (page 39) finally makes an appearance after years of being thrown out of Footlights shows, probably because it was never coupled to a scene where people were being thrown out of spaceships.

‘Life, don’t talk to me about life’

This is actually not my line, but comes from the comedy writer Jon Canter, a very good friend of mine (despite the fact that I pinched this line from him shamelessly) who used it in the opening line to a monologue in a Footlights show in 1972. (DNA)

Music Details

Wind on water from Evening Star by Fripp and Eno.

(Used for the opening narration speech)

Rainbow in curved air by Terry Riley

(Used for the ‘Space is big . . .’ speech)

Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band by Terry Riley

(Used for the Improbability Drive speech)

Cachaca by Patrick Moraz

(Used for the radio news report).