The tickets for this show were a present for my dad for his birthday earlier in the year. It was my dad who first introduced me to all things Hitchhikers. We’ve shared pretty much every incarnation. (And both agree that the worst version is the film version.) So the fact that the original radio cast were reuniting for a live tour was big news for us.
Throughout the tour they have had guest artists featuring as the voice of the Book. For our performance it was John Challis. The way they depicted the Book was excellent. The voice of the Book sat in a big leather “story teller” chair with a lamp and framed photograph of Douglas Adams. Turning back to an image of traditional storytelling to depict a futuristic electronic book was pure genius. (Actually the irony was not lost that as I watched the performance I had a kindle with all the Hitchhiker books loaded on it in my bag.)
Like all incarnations of the story, this version was different to ones that went before, leaping over chunks of the story to include as much as possible in the little time available.
Highlights included a special guest appearance of Johnny Vegas as Dish of the Day in Milliways, the visualisation of Marvin the Paranoid Android and, for me anyway, Mark Wing-Davey in a black kilt. (This wasn’t relevant to the character of Zaphod, it was just what he was wearing that evening for the show.) I have to
There was a bit of an emotional moment as it dawned on me that Douglas Adams himself was playing Agrajag. Another splendid idea for this production. There was a huge round of applause at the end when, as the cast took their final bows, they were watched over by a large image of Douglas projected on the screen behind them. After all, he was the reason we were all there that night.
Revisiting Hitchhikers in any form (well maybe not the film) is like visiting with old friends. So much from the series has entered the vernacular of certain generations, that we don’t always realise it these days. It’s almost like a race memory.
The tour continues through to the end of July. See the hitchikerslive.com site for tour dates. It’s well worth it. 
(Yeah…I may have hit the merch stall a little hard!)
No comments:
Post a Comment