Fit the First

Arthur Dent is trying to stop his house being demolished to make way for a by-pass. But his friend, Ford Prefect (who hails not from Guildford, but somewhere near Betelgeuse), is more concerned about the imminent destruction of the Earth. Ford is a writer for the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, "the most successful book ever to have come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor" and he may just know how to avoid being evaporated by the Vogons...

The global multi-media success story that is "Hitchhiker's" started life as a Radio 4 series in March 1978. The original scripts by the late Douglas Adams then went on to spawn a series of novels, a feature film, at least three stage shows, a TV series, a computer game, a collection of comic books - and various towels.

The Guide helpfully informs us that the most obscene expletive in the galaxy is "Belgium".

Douglas Adams was born in Cambridge and died in 2001 aged 49, after a fatal heart attack in his gym in California.

The answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything is 42.

With Peter Jones, Simon Jones, Geoffrey McGivern and Jo Kendall. Produced by Simon Brett.

First heard on BBC Radio 4 in March 1978.