Force of nature

AFTER its BBC4 premiere, Dirk Gently gets a screening on BBC2 tonight, following news that more episodes featuring the character created by Douglas Adams have been commissioned.

Adams, best known for The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, died ten years ago and longed for both the Guide and Dirk Gently to make the move from page to screen.

Ed Victor, Adams’ agent, recalls that for all the years he represented the writer, “the most substantial frustration for both of us was that we couldn’t get films made either of Hitchhiker or Dirk”.

He said: “Douglas once said, memorably, that getting a film made in Hollywood was like ‘trying to cook a steak by having a bunch of people come into the room and breathe on it’.

“Well, we did eventually get a film made in Hollywood of Hitchhiker and, tragically, Douglas didn’t live to see it.

Nor will he see this adaptation of Dirk.

“But it’s worth bearing in mind that Douglas always thought Dirk would make a better film than Hitchhiker, and I feel sure that this TV drama with a terrific script by Howard Overman proves his point.”

Dirk Gently first appeared in the book, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, published in 1987, and described by Adams as “a kind of ghost-horror-detective- time-travel-romantic-comedy-epic, mainly concerned with mud, music and quantum mechanics.” It was followed a year later by The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.

In the adaptation of the first book, Stephen Mangan steps into the detective’s long coat to focus on the “interconnectedness”

of all things.

In this first story, an investigation into the mystery of a missing cat is found to be linked to a chance encounter with an old friend, an explosion in a warehouse, a missing billionaire and a plate of biscuits.

“Dirk is a chaotic, anarchic force of nature with a totally unique take on the world,” says Mangan. “He’s described as lazy, untidy, dismissive and unreliable’.

I’ve absolutely no idea why they thought I’d be right for the role.

“I’ve been a fan of Douglas Adams ever since the Hitchhiker’s radio series, which I used to record as a child and listen to over and over again in my bedroom. It’s such a thrill to now be playing one of his brilliant characters.”

Darren Boyd, Helen Baxendale and Jason Watkins also star.

BOB DYLAN, who turns 70 this month, is one of the world’s most influential singer-songwriters and inspired generations of musicians to pick up a guitar.

However, he also inspired a lot of music fans to spend hours poring over his lyrics, analysing his every move and writing essays about what it all means.

The documentary Tangled Up With Dylan: The Ballad of AJ Weberman profiles arguably the most devoted of the “Dylanologists”, AJ Weberman, who went even further than just obsessively listening to the songs in search of hidden meanings.

He was so keen to get an insight into the artist formerly known as Robert Zimmerman, he even resorted to sifting through the great man’s rubbish.

This programme features a recorded phone conversation between the two, as well as testimony from Weberman’s friends.

THERE was sad news for lorry enthusiasts in March, when it was announced that Edward Stobart, the man credited with turning his family business into one of the most distinctive haulage firms in the world, had died.

But the company that shares his name lives on, employing 5,000 people and making a delivery every 4.6 seconds.

That success will be celebrated in the first episode of the new behind-thescenes series of Eddie Stobart: Trucks and Trailers as the bosses decide to mark the company’s 40th anniversary by sponsoring a charity ball in London.

The guest of honour will be a new, topof- the-range truck, but when driver Matt crashes it en route to the event, it looks like there might be a last-minute change of plan.