Simon Jones as Arthur Dent. Photo credit: James Bullimore
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Hitchhiker's Guide Radio Show Tours, Reunites Cast

Douglas Adam's classic science fiction comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy will be brought back to the stage next year when the Radio Theatre Company reunites members of the original television and radio casts for a new UK tour of live performances.

Led by Simon Jones as Arthur Dent, with Geoff McGivern as Ford Prefect, Susan Sheridan as Trillian, Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox and Stephen Moore as Marvin the Paranoid Android, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Show - Live! will include highlights from the entire Hitchhiker's saga.

The cast are reunited having performed in the BBC Radio version of the The Hitchhiker's Guide which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 from 1978. Other original company members included the late Peter Jones as The Book, who died in 2000, and Richard Vernon as Slartibartfast, who died in 1997.

Directed by Dirk Maggs, the show will feature a series of "VIP guests" as the voice of The Book, with each event recorded and available for download as "genuine audio experience" after the performance.

Kicking off at Glasgow's Theatre Royal on 8 June 2012, the production will plays a series of one and two-night dates in Newcastle, Birmingham, Basingstoke, Northampton, Blackpool, Liverpool, Leicester, Plymouth, Woking, Bromley, Manchester, York, Llandudno, Aylesbury, Brighton, Cambridge and Southend, ending at Edinburgh Playhouse on 21 July 2012.

Adams' legendary comic sci-fi saga spawned five bestselling novels, five award-winning BBC radio series, a television series and was adapted for the big screen in 2005 in a film starring Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent.

The live radio performances will not be the first time The Hitchhiker's Guide has been brought to the stage. Ken Campbell helmed two professional productions, going as far back as 1979 at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts and later the Rainbow Theatre. Clwyd Theatr Cymru also performed adaptations of radio episodes, directed by Jonathan Petherbridge.

Tickets for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Show - Live! will go on sale from Monday 19 December 2011.

The production has live music directed by Philip Pope, and is adapted, written and directed by Dirk Maggs. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Show - Live! is produced by Perfectly Normal Productions and The Entertainment Business for The Radio Theatre Company.

- by Andrew Girvan

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