Hitch-Hiker returns to TV

The series was first a TV hit in 1981

The hit sci-fi comedy The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy is to return to BBC TV as a tribute to its creator, Douglas Adams, who died in May.

The series, first shown in 1981, will be repeated from the end of July, with a special edition of Omnibus about the author's life also planned.

Adams found fame after the story about a group of various galactic creatures roaming the universe became a radio hit in 1978.

Arthur Dent with Marvin the Paranoid Android

Comedian Stephen Fry, former Monty Python star Terry Jones and BBC Head of Comedy Geoffrey Perkins will all be seen paying tribute to Adams in the Omnibus special, to be broadcast on Saturday, 4 August.

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy was conceived while Adams was drunk and watching the stars from a field in Austria.

He had been reading various Hitch-Hiker's Guides and decided that someone should write a guide to the galaxy.

The story, which sees hapless human Arthur Dent rescued from the destruction of Earth, was first made for BBC Radio 4.

Dent shares a spacecraft with memorable characters including Marvin the Paranoid Android, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Ford Prefect.

Spin-offs

Repeats of the show will begin on Monday, 30 July.

As well as becoming a TV series, the story has been turned into a hit novel, an album, a computer game and several stage productions.

More stories followed its success, with Adams creating The Hitch-Hiker's Trilogy - despite there being five parts by the time of his death.

It was reported last month that his works left unpublished will be posthumously released.

Adams died from a heart attack, aged 49, in Santa Barbara, California.