By Douglas Adams

Adapted for reader’s theater from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Crown, 1980

GENRE: Science fiction
CULTURE: Contemporary
THEME: Dangers of bureaucracy; progress vs. personal values
GRADE LEVEL: 6 and up
ROLES: 6-8
TIME: 10 min.

ROLES: Narrator 1, Narrator 2, Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Prosser, Vogon/Bartender/(Bulldozer Driver)

NOTE: This is the beginning of Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker Trilogy—The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and Life, the Universe and Everything. These stories first appeared as a British radio series, then were made into a British TV series, and only then were adapted into novels. Later, Adams added a fourth book: So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.

NARRATOR 1: Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy, there lies a small, unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly 98 million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive, they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

NARRATOR 2: One Thursday, a terrible, stupid catastrophe occurred.

NARRATOR 1: The story begins with a house. Not a remarkable house, by any means. The only person for whom the house was in any way special was Arthur Dent, and that was only because it happened to be the one he lived in.

NARRATOR 2: At 8:00 on Thursday morning, Arthur woke up blearily, got up, put on his bathrobe, wandered round his room, opened a window, saw several big yellow bulldozers, found his slippers, and stomped off to the bathroom to wash. He drank a large glass of water.

ARTHUR: (reflectively) Bulldozers. (gasps)

NARRATOR 1: Fifteen seconds later, Arthur was out of the house and standing in the mud in front of a big yellow bulldozer that had been advancing up his garden path.

NARRATOR 2: Mr. L. Prosser was, as they say, only human. In other words, he was a carbon-based bipedal life form descended from an ape.

PROSSER: Come off it, Mr. Dent. You can’t stand in front of the bulldozer indefinitely. This expressway has got to be built, and it’s going to be built!

ARTHUR: Why’s it got to be built?

PROSSER: What do you mean, "why"? It’s an expressway. You’ve got to build expressways! You were quite entitled to make any suggestions or protests at the appropriate time, you know.

ARTHUR: Appropriate time?! The first I knew about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday and said he’d come to demolish the house!

PROSSER: But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months!

ARTHUR: Yes, well, as soon as I heard, I went straight round to see them. You hadn’t gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody.

PROSSER: The plans were on display—

ARTHUR: On display? I had to go down to the cellar to find them!

PROSSER: That’s the display department!

ARTHUR: With a flashlight.

PROSSER: The lights had probably gone out.

ARTHUR: So had the stairs.

PROSSER: But you found the notice, didn’t you?

ARTHUR: Yes, I did. It was "on display" in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying, "Beware of the Leopard."

PROSSER: Mr. Dent, have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?

ARTHUR: How much?

PROSSER: None at all. (moves away)

* * *

NARRATOR 1: By a curious coincidence, "none at all" is exactly how much suspicion the ape-descendant Arthur Dent had that one of his closest friends was not descended from an ape, but was in fact from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.

NARRATOR 2: This friend of his had first arrived on the planet Earth some fifteen Earth years previously, and he had worked hard to blend himself into Earth society—with some success. He had made one careless blunder, though. He had chosen the name "Ford Prefect," thinking it would be nicely inconspicuous.

NARRATOR 1: Fifteen years was a long time to be stranded anywhere—particularly somewhere as mind-bogglingly dull as the Earth.

NARRATOR 2: Ford wished that a flying saucer would arrive soon, because he knew how to flag down flying saucers and hitch rides on them.

FORD: Hello, Arthur.

ARTHUR: Ford! How are you?

FORD: Fine. Look, are you busy?

ARTHUR: Am I busy? Well, I’ve just got all these bulldozers and things to stand in front of, because they’ll knock my house down if I don’t, but other than that…

NARRATOR 1: They don’t have sarcasm on Betelgeuse, and Ford Prefect often failed to notice it unless he was concentrating.

FORD: Good. Is there anywhere we can talk?

ARTHUR: What?

NARRATOR 2: For a few seconds, Ford stared into the sky, like a rabbit trying to get run over by a car.

FORD: We’ve got to talk. And drink. Now. We’ll go to the pub in the village. (looks at sky again)

ARTHUR: Look, don’t you understand? That man wants to knock down my house!

FORD: (puzzled) He can do it while you’re away, can’t he?

ARTHUR: But I don’t want him to! What’s the matter with you, Ford?

FORD: Nothing. Listen, I’ve got to tell you the most important thing you’ve ever heard, and I’ve got to tell you in the pub.

ARTHUR: Why in the pub?

FORD: Because you’re going to need a very stiff drink.

ARTHUR: But what about the house?

FORD: I’m sure we can come to some arrangement. (to Prosser) Excuse me!

PROSSER: (coming over) Yes? Has Mr. Dent come to his senses yet?

FORD: Can we for the moment assume that he hasn’t?

PROSSER: (sighs) Well, then?

FORD: And can we also assume that he’s going to be staying here all day?

PROSSER: So?

FORD: So all your men are going to be standing around all day, doing nothing.

PROSSER: Could be.

FORD: Well, if you’re resigned to doing that anyway, you don’t actually need him to stand here all the time, do you?

PROSSER: What?

FORD: (patiently) You don’t actually need him here.

PROSSER: (considering) Well, no, not as such.… Not exactly need.…

FORD: So, if you would just like to take it that he’s actually here, then he and I could slip off down to the pub for half an hour. How does that sound?

PROSSER: (going along with it) That sounds reasonable.…

FORD: So, if you would just come over and stand here.

PROSSER: What?

FORD: Ah, I’m sorry, perhaps I hadn’t made myself fully clear. Somebody’s got to stand in front of the bulldozers, haven’t they? Or there won’t be anything to stop them driving into Mr. Dent’s house, will there?

ARTHUR: (under his breath) Ford, what are you talking about?

FORD: Shh!

PROSSER: You want me…to come…and stand there…in front of the bulldozer…instead of Mr. Dent.

FORD: Yes.

PROSSER: In the mud.

FORD: In, as you say, the mud.

PROSSER: In return for which you will take Mr. Dent with you down to the pub.

FORD: That’s it. That’s it exactly.

PROSSER: Promise?

FORD: Promise.

NARRATOR 1: Mr. Prosser stepped forward nervously and felt the mud ooze into his shoes.

FORD: And no sneaky knocking down Mr. Dent’s house while he’s away, all right?

PROSSER: (deviously) The thought hadn’t even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing my mind!

FORD: Good. Let’s go, Arthur. (starts off)

ARTHUR: (following Ford) But can we trust him?

FORD: I’d trust him to the end of the Earth.

ARTHUR: (sarcastically) Oh, yes! And how far’s that?

FORD: About twelve minutes. Here we are. Bartender, six pints of bitter. And quickly, please. The world’s about to end.

BARTENDER: (going along with it) Oh, is it, sir? Nice weather for it. There you are, sir, six pints.

FORD: (hands him the money) Keep the change.

BARTENDER: From a five-pound note? Thank you, sir!

FORD: You’ve got ten minutes to spend it.

ARTHUR: Ford, would you please tell me what is going on?

FORD: Drink up! You’ve got three pints to get through.

ARTHUR: Why three pints, just like that?

FORD: Muscle relaxant. You’ll need it.

ARTHUR: (to his beer) This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

FORD: All right, I’ll try to explain. How would you react if I said I’m from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.

ARTHUR: I don’t know. Why? Do you think it’s the sort of thing you’re likely to say?

NARRATOR 2: At that moment from outside came a dull, rumbling crash.

ARTHUR: What’s that?

FORD: Don’t worry. They haven’t started yet.

ARTHUR: Thank God for that!

FORD: It’s probably just your house being knocked down.

ARTHUR: What?! (looks out door) My God, they are! They’re knocking down my house!

(ARTHUR starts running back, with FORD following.)

ARTHUR: Stop, you vandals! You home wreckers! You half-crazed Visigoths! I’ll have you hung, drawn and quartered! And whipped! And boiled! Then I’ll take all the pieces and I will jump on them until…until…until… (stops short, looking up) What’s THAT!

NARRATOR 1: Huge yellow somethings were screaming through the clouds. Impossibly-huge yellow somethings. They tore the sky apart with mind-boggling noise and leaped off into the distance, leaving the gaping air to shut behind with a BANG that drove your ears six feet into your skull.

NARRATOR 2: All around the world, city streets exploded with people, cars skidded into each other, as the noise fell on them and rolled off like a tidal wave.

NARRATOR 1: Only one man knew exactly what was happening. He had known ever since his Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic had started winking in the dead of night. When he had deciphered the signal pattern, a coldness had gripped his heart. But he knew what he had to do.

NARRATOR 2: A sudden silence hit the Earth. The great ships hung motionless in the sky, over every nation.

VOGON: People of Earth, your attention please. This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council. As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you.

NARRATOR 1: Uncomprehending terror settled on the watching people of Earth.

NARRATOR 2: Panic sprouted, desperate fleeing panic, but there was nowhere to flee.

VOGON: There’s no point acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years! You’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaints. It’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now!

FORD: (fiddling with his gadget) Ready, Arthur?

ARTHUR: Ready? Ready for what?

FORD: I’m rescuing you. The Earth is about to be demolished.

ARTHUR: And just how are you going to rescue me from that?

FORD: We’re hitching a ride on one of those spaceships.

ARTHUR: Excuse me? Are you trying to tell me we just stick out our thumbs, and some green, bug-eyed monster will poke his head out and say, "Hi, fellas, hop right in"?

FORD: Well, the "thumb" is this electronic sub-etha signaling device, but otherwise, that’s more or less right.

ARTHUR: Now I know it’s Thursday.

FORD: This is it, Arthur! Up we go!

(FORD and ARTHUR transport off.)

NARRATOR 1: The huge ships turned slowly in the sky. On the underside of each, a hatchway opened, an empty black square. Suddenly, light poured out of the hatchways.

NARRATOR 2: There was a terrible, ghastly noise.

NARRATOR 1: There was a terrible, ghastly silence.

NARRATOR 2: The Vogon Constructor Fleet coasted away in the inky, starry void.