It seems that Amazon.co.uk has begun to ship the new Hitchhiker’s radio series Audio CD a few days before the planned time. Good news for all of us who pre-ordered this new invaluable item. A good deal for the more impatient ones too because the last sixth episode will be only broadcasted monday, the 25th october.
And, unsurprisingly, the Audio CD sells well on Amazon. It is listed in the top sellers lists.
Is it worth the few quids it costs? Definitly yes. Dirk Maggs has done a wonderful job, and you’ll appreciate a lot to be able to listen to the new series with a marvellous CD quality sound. And a great bonus has been added : the episodes have been specially extended for this CD. So you will hear brand new material you haven’t heard on radio or/and the web.
It was a hugely difficul challenge for Dirk regarding the well known fact that the second series ended abruptly and that the following versions of Hitchhikers absolutley ignored what happened in this second series. So the fact that he found a solution to that is one of Dirk great ideas.
The hightlights of the new series are definitly the Agrajaf part played by Douglas in the Cathedral of Hate, Marvin helpless pivoting in circle in in the swamps of Squornshellous Zeta with a talkative mattress called Zem for only company, Arthur flying, Zaphod trying to save the world by arresting the Kikkrit robots, the party in the sky, or Trillian eating Ford’s crisps while watching a documentary…
All the actors, the old and news ones, have done a wonderful job, and the magic from the original series is still here even if, of course, twenty five years later, it doesn’t sound entirely the same ! Sound effects are very well done (they are of course far more realistic and present that in the original series), the music is nice, and important point too for the news series, William Franklyn does a fantastic job as Peter Jones’ substitute.
