THE SPECIAL COLLECTIONS OF St John's College, Cambridge are a prestigious place in which to have your life documented. Correspondence from poets such as William Wordsworth and Stéphane Mallarmé is housed here, as are the personal papers of former students like Samuel Butler (author of Erewhon) and photographer Sir Cecil Beaton. Since 2012, after the death of his widow prompted the sale of their former home, another alumnus has been filed alongside them: Douglas Adams. Now treasures from his archive have been collected in a new book, 42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas Of Douglas Adams.
Its editor has a long history with The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Kevin Jon Davies helped animate the Book sequences for the TV show, and directed 1993 documentary The Making Of The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy. More recently, he scoured the archive for "odd scraps" of HHGTTG which could be stirred into the radio production of Eoin Colfer's Hitchhiker's novel And Another Thing... This led to publisher Unbound approaching him about a book.
With 67 boxes of materials (of which Davies reckons he viewed "well over 85%"), he had to make some tough choices. "It was a case of trying to find the best, and something that would be nicely self-contained," he explains, "because a lot of stuff was too long." So for example, a lengthy speech on mobile phones is represented via Adams's crib notes.
"I tried to get something from across his whole life," Davies continues. "We start with the school days. We've got his university work, all his Footlights [the Cambridge University revue] and amateur dramatic stuff - there's some posters he did himself for his comedy troupe. Then all the famous stuff that we know. There's a big section on Hitchhiker's of course, Doctor Who, Dirk Gently... everything's covered, right up to the very end."
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 2023-Ausgabe von SFX UK.
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ANCER MAHAGEMENT
WITH A NEW TRILOGY IN SIGHT, WE SPEAK TO THE DIRECTOR OF 28 WEEKS LATER THE ORIGINAL CHILLING SEQUEL TO DANNY BOYLE'S SEMINAL SURVIVAL HORROR
WHO YA CONNA CALL?
BEHIND THE SCENES AT HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS FOR GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE
SPEAK OF THE DEVIL
THE DEVIL'S HOUR STRIKES TWICE AS THE GENREDEFYING DRAMA RETURNS
SCARRY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK
FROM THE RETURN OF EC COMICS TO SCREAM!, THIS YEAR'S HALLOWEEN OFFERS UP HORROR COMICS FOR ALL THE AGES
UNDEADS REFLECTIONS
NEIL JORDAN ON BRINGING ANNE RICE'S MODERN VAMPIRE CLASSIC TO SCREEN, 30 YEARS ON
MUNSTER MASH!
PRODUCTION HELL, SHOCK RECASTING AND HOTLY CONTESTED AUTHORSHIP. AS THE MUNSTERS CELEBRATE THEIR 60TH ANNIVERSARY, WE UNCOVER HOW THE SPOOKY SITCOM WAS ALMOST DEAD ON ARRIVAL
COMING TO AMERICA
THE MOGWAI LIVE THE AMERICAN DREAM IN THEIR SECOND CHAPTER, GREMLINS: THE WILD BATCH
BEING HUMAN EVOLUTION
IT MAY HAVE BEEN AN INSTANT HIT, BUT BBC THREE'S DARKLY COMIC DRAMA ABOUT A HOUSE-SHARING VAMPIRE/WEREWOLF/GHOST TRIO HAD A STRANGE JOURNEY TO THE SCREEN, SERIES CREATOR TOBY WHITHOUSE TELLS SFX
THE MAINE EVENT
THE DARK IS RISING IN SALEM'S LOT AS STEPHEN KING'S DEATHLESS TALE RETURNS TO THE SCREEN
WHY DON'T YOU STAY FOR A BITE?
THE VAMPIRE COMES HOME AS DIRECTOR EUROS LYN WELCOMES SFX TO HIS NEW DARK COMEDY THE RADLEYS