The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Complete Radio Series [Audiobook]

This really is the ultimate answer to Life, the Universe and Everything - all five radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy collected together

From the original Primary and Secondary Phases, through to the more recent Tertiary, Quandary and Quintessential Phases, these are the adventures of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox and their assorted human, robotic and alien companions. These full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramas star Simon Jones, Peter Jones, Geoffrey McGivern, Mark Wing-Davey, Stephen Moore and Susan Sheridan, with a stellar guest cast including John le Mesurier, Joanna Lumley, Christian Slater, Jackie Mason, Sandra Dickinson, Rula Lenska, Griff Rhys Jones and Jonathan Pryce. Also included is an exclusive bonus disc containing two programmes from the BBC Archive: Kaleidoscope from 1980 (going behind the scenes of the second series) and Six Characters in Search of an Answer: Arthur Dent from 2002.

The series follows the adventures of hapless Englishman Arthur Dent and his friend Ford Prefect, an alien who writes for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a pan-galactic encyclopaedia and travel guide. After Earth is destroyed in the first episode, Arthur and Ford find themselves aboard a stolen spaceship piloted by a motley crew including Zaphod Beeblebrox (Ford's semi-cousin and Galactic President), depressed robot Marvin, and Trillian, the only other human survivor of Earth's destruction.

A pilot programme was commissioned in March 1977, and was recorded by the end of the following June. A second series was commissioned in 1979, transmitted in 1980. Episodes of the first series were re-recorded for release on LP records and audio cassettes and Adams adapted the first series into a best-selling novel in 1979. After the 1980 transmissions of the second radio series, a second novel was published and the first series was adapted for television. This was followed by three further novels, a computer game, and various other media.