Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Original cast reunite for new Radio 4 mini-series

Six episodes of unpublished material are coming in 2018

To mark the 40th anniversary of its debut, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is returning to Radio 4 for a sixth instalment in Spring 2018, entitled “Hexagonal Phase”.

After a 12-year-hiatus, Douglas Adams’ much-loved sci-fi radio comedy is back, and many of the original cast members are too. Simon Jones will reprise his role as Arthur Dent, alongside Geoff McGivern as Ford Prefect, Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox and Sandra Dickinson as Trillian.

The upcoming revival will be adapted from And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer, and will also include unpublished material from Adams.

On the new chapter, Jones said: “It seems extraordinary that it’s been forty years since we recorded the first pilot episode for BBC Radio; how modest were our expectations then, and how amazing a worldwide phenomenon it became, and continues to be”.

Since the first broadcast of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in 1978, four more series were released between 1980 and 2005. The radio sensation then was adapted into a bestselling book series, TV show, computer game and film in 2005.

The Arthur Dent actor added: “I never expected to still be searching for a decent cup of tea and some kind of answer to Life, the Universe and Everything almost a lifetime later. Still, the dressing-gown and towel may be a little threadbare, like my hair, but my voice, much to my surprise, hasn’t changed a decibel, and despite years in America, I can still talk Arthur’s ‘indignant-posh’.”

To celebrate the upcoming return, Simon Jones will feature on a Hitchhiker’s panel hosted by Radio 4 at MCM London Comic Con on 28 October.