A radio drama series, blending science-fiction and comedy, which spawned a very popular franchise that includes a television series, as well as (like Knightmare) a succession of books, stage shows, merchandise and a computer game or two.

The authorship of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy was in fact the subject of a multiple choice question in Activision's 1987 Knightmare computer game. While the correct answer was Douglas Adams, one of the incorrect options, Arthur Dent, was the name of the main character in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

In Episode 1 of Series 5 of Knightmare, Rayner Bourton, Michael Cule and David Learner appeared alongside one another as KM cast members, playing Julius Scaramonger, Brother Mace and Pickle respectively. But The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy BBC TV series had brought them together 10 years previously. Episode 2 of the series, first broadcast on 12/01/81, featured all three: Rayner Bourton as a newscaster, Michael Cule as a Vogon guard (he had previously appeared in a Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy stage show, later played the Vogon Guard on radio and has since used vogonguard as a pen name) and - perhaps most famously - David Learner as the body of Marvin the android.

Marvin was a role that David Learner had been playing, both physically and vocally, in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy stage shows. As he revealed in an interview in the Wisbech Standard newspaper (28/01/94), "I walked on stage on the first night in Bangor dressed in a silver wig and huge Frankenstein boots, said the first line and there was a huge roar. It was incredible."

Although David can be seen across at least 3 minutes of the Making Of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy video, he told Debbie Glover in a 2002 interview that 'Marvin was then. [Playing Marvin or Pickle again] would be like re-marrying an ex-wife: sometimes it can work, but there is a season for everything.'

Between The Hitchhiker's Guide and Knightmare, David Learner voiced artificial life form LARI in The Satellite Game. In the 2005 film of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Marvin was voiced by one of David Learner's RADA contemporaries, Alan Rickman.

In June 2017, David Learner and Michael Cule were guests at Lazlar Lyricon 3, a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy convention, where they participated in a re-enactment of Knightmare.

Actors are not the only professionals to connect Knightmare and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Robert Harris, whose Travelling Matte Company provided KM's computer technology, reportedly also worked on the computer graphics of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy TV series.

See also: Dooreen.

[Earlier version: 2011-06-22 18:09:51]

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