THHGTTG, Tertiary Phase
Sep. 21st, 2004 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lprovenTook a break from writing to go downstairs, tune in to Radio 4 - a very rare thing for me - and listen to the first broadcast of the first new episode in about a quarter of a century of the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
You know, for all that I'm a serious fan, not to say obsessed, have just about every extant version I can get, from albums to tapes to DVDs to Radio Scripts to the books in English plus American, Spanish, French, German and Norwegian editions, this is something I've never done in my life before.
But the radio version is, really, definitive. And the first I heard it was in class, at the end of a term at Kingswood School, where our rather radical, cheerful young English teacher used to play us BBC Radio adaptations of famous works of English Literature in a double lesson once a week. Since, at 12yo, most of the class were barely literate, it was an effective way of forcing it into them.
At the end of one term, there wasn't enough time to start a new play. "So," he said, "I'll play you a bit of this. It's just been on the radio and I thought it was really funny. You might like it." His expression said that most of us wouldn't, but I, as the class's sole reader, might, as my Dr Who-fan mate might.
I LOLed. I FOCLed. I even ROFLed.
That really doesn't happen very often, in real life.
I had an advance order in for the 1st edition of the 1st book at my local W H Smiths. I was there for it the day it came in.
I knew to the day, months in advance, when the 1st TV programme was due, and I was there, glued to it. I remember seeing the sun rising over a pastoral English landscape so well. That was, I believe, 23y ago.
But I've never heard it on the radio, where it was meant to be, for the first time before.
And it was good. Damned good. I laughed delightedly at some bits, yet others were wonderfully fresh.
It's an excellent adaptation. I think DNA would approve. He'd change it beyond recognition, then scale back his plans dramatically 'cos it'd all be horribly late and he'd be about to miss the deadline, but I think he'd be pleased.
You know, for all that I'm a serious fan, not to say obsessed, have just about every extant version I can get, from albums to tapes to DVDs to Radio Scripts to the books in English plus American, Spanish, French, German and Norwegian editions, this is something I've never done in my life before.
But the radio version is, really, definitive. And the first I heard it was in class, at the end of a term at Kingswood School, where our rather radical, cheerful young English teacher used to play us BBC Radio adaptations of famous works of English Literature in a double lesson once a week. Since, at 12yo, most of the class were barely literate, it was an effective way of forcing it into them.
At the end of one term, there wasn't enough time to start a new play. "So," he said, "I'll play you a bit of this. It's just been on the radio and I thought it was really funny. You might like it." His expression said that most of us wouldn't, but I, as the class's sole reader, might, as my Dr Who-fan mate might.
I LOLed. I FOCLed. I even ROFLed.
That really doesn't happen very often, in real life.
I had an advance order in for the 1st edition of the 1st book at my local W H Smiths. I was there for it the day it came in.
I knew to the day, months in advance, when the 1st TV programme was due, and I was there, glued to it. I remember seeing the sun rising over a pastoral English landscape so well. That was, I believe, 23y ago.
But I've never heard it on the radio, where it was meant to be, for the first time before.
And it was good. Damned good. I laughed delightedly at some bits, yet others were wonderfully fresh.
It's an excellent adaptation. I think DNA would approve. He'd change it beyond recognition, then scale back his plans dramatically 'cos it'd all be horribly late and he'd be about to miss the deadline, but I think he'd be pleased.
