The sixth episode of Douglas Adams’ breakthrough radio science fiction comedy series The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is first broadcast on BBC Radio. This is the second episode co-written by John Lloyd, though his contributions are frequently downplayed by Adams in later years. Due to the unexpected popularity of the six-episode series, the BBC asks Adams for more Hitchhiker’s Guide, but in the interim he has also taken on a new full-time job as script editor of Doctor Who, making it harder to simultaneously write another six-episode radio series. 
The ship that Zaphod has “borrowed” turns out to be the personal command cruiser of the admiral of a Haggunenon battlefleet. The ship, like its Haggunenon admiral, is organic and evolves rapidly, often over lunchtime. Before long, it becomes quite an inhospitable environment for Zaphod, Ford, Trillian and Arthur, and they’re forced to bail out in escape pods, though only Ford and Arthur actually escape. Thanks to Arthur punching a button, their escape pod travels millions of years backward in time, arriving aboard a Golgafrincham Space Ark. Supposedly, this ship – containing vacuum-frozen hairdressers, TV producers, salespeople and other middle-class members of Golgafrincham society – is one of three evacuation craft escaping the death of the Golgafrincham solar system. Or at least, that’s what its occupants have been told – in actuality, they’ve been sent away from their world while the rest of their planet’s population has a bit of a laugh. The Ark crashes into a primitive world, and its clueless occupants try to form a new society. Ford and Arthur investigate the planet on which they may now be marooned for the rest of their lives, only to find that they’ve been there before.
written by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd
directed by Alick Hale-Munro
music by Paddy Kingsland
(featuring “What A Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong)Cast: Peter Jones (The Voice of the Book), Simon Jones (Arthur Dent), Geoffrey McGivern (Ford Prefect), Mark Wing-Davey (Zaphod Beeblebrox), Susan Sheridan (Trillian), Stephen Moore (Marvin), Beth Porter (Marketing girl), Jonathan Cecil (Number One / Management consultant), David Jason (Captain / Caveman), Aubrey Woods (Number Two / Hairdresser)
LogBook entry by Earl Green