J enz Kjellberg aka The Duke of Dunstable, webmaster of the fabulous Douglasadams.se website, has just put online his own set visit report after the visit we did together with fellows Nick Webb and an other fan called Simon Hall. Duke shares his enthusiasm with us, and I’m sure that after reading so many eager movie set visits (including mine), you won’t ever have any doubts about the fact that the movie is in good hands. As Duke says : “It’s tight, it makes sense, it’s a new angle with new scenes and characters, and it’s funny. I am 100 per cent confident, and all these people involved are so dedicated it brings tears to ones eyes.” Besides the fact that i look like a “a young but balding Robert De Niro” (i take that as a compliment), Duke reveals that we indeed saw the movie trailer a few days before everybody. It looked fabulous on their big flat TV set of course! He also reveals a lot of interesting bits like the “Vogon arse print in a special “throne”,… That one is also quite good : “I felt warm to discover that a new item invented by Douglas and which I have been talking about earlier is indeed still in the script, and not only that; it plays quite an essential part”. Indeed, even if he can’t talk much more about it, Mr Duke has been really a prophesier on this one. And it is a great concept. Of course, you would still complain about the obvious fact that we can’t give you a lot of details about the movie, but well, it would spoil the suprise, wouldn’t it?

That’s great news. First, “each episode will be available for 7 days following the Thursday evening repeats” on Radio 4’s amazing website. So you can’t even miss one episode, even if you’re very absentiminded.

And of course you will absolutly want the episode on tapes or even better on CDs (well you can buy both too!). They are already available in pre order on BBC shop. The release date is next 25 october, so you won’t have to wait long! The CD version (3 cds) cost 11£99 (you get 4£ off the usual price 15£99) and the tapes version (3 tapes) costs 14£99. As notice MJ Simpson on his website, they are worth buying because they are longer edits. In total there is about 21 minutes of extra material – which is nearly an entire other episode!”

You’ll have to wait a little more to get your hands on the scriptbook, but you’ll get the whole new series (14 episodes, “So long” and “Mostly Harmless” will be broadcasted next spring in eight episodes). It’s going to be published by Pan Macmillan the 1st July 2005.

Of course, the press is going to cover the radio series broadcast. You’ve got to buy a copy of this month’ TV Zone. Some great articles have been writen in this issue by Hitchhiker’s legend Kevin Davies (see his interview here) and Andrew Pixley, a researcher into archive TV and radio. As Raymond Daley wrote on afda : “Get off your arses and speed your way to your nearest newsagaents to buy Tv Zone #180. It has an article about the hikers original radio series (some very nice pictures there) and stuff about the NEW radio series transmitting in September.Well worth a look, LOTS of nice pix to look at. and a mention of a special dvd for the new series (I’ll say no more, read the mag!)”.
The Mail on Sunday plans to publish some good stuff too. MJ Simpson wrote on his site that “Dirk Maggs tells me that he was recently interviewed about the Tertiary Phase for the Night and Day section of the Mail on Sunday. This article will be published in the paper on 12th September”.