The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul is an Above the Title Productions radio adaptation, dramatised by Dirk Maggs and John Langdon[1] of Douglas Adams's The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. Starring Harry Enfield, Peter Davison, John Fortune[2] and Stephen Moore, it started broadcasting on 2 October 2008 on BBC Radio 4.[3]
The title is a quotation from the Adams novel Life, The Universe and Everything, where it says of the immortally annoyed Wowbagger:[4]
In adapting the story for six half-hour episodes, Dirk Maggs rescheduled the novel's convoluted plot:[5]
The adaptation is an inverted detective story, shuffling the importance of characters: elevating the Draycotts, turning Neil Sharp into Kate Schechter's landlord and former Pugilism and the Third Autistic Cuckoo member with the now returned Richard MacDuff. Cleaner Elena is inadvertently kidnapped by Nobby the Pawnbroker, after the battle with a ravenous fridge.[6]
On the audio trailer,[7] Susan Way sells Way Forward Technologies to Sirius Cybernetics, Richard MacDuff is detained by the Vogon catchphrase "resistance is useless", and the I-Ching Calculator has the 'Guide activation' sound, and is obtained from Nobby.