Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Terry Jones’ Starship Titanic is heading to Radio 4, courtesy of Dirk Maggs.

A tale of interstellar skulduggery, romance and unhinged robots based in Douglas Adams’s universe starring Michael Palin. It will air on Sunday December 19 at 3 pm.

Far off in the centre of one of the less well-chartered quadrants of the universe, a vast civilisation is preparing to launch the most technologically advanced starship ever – Starship Titanic While the galaxy’s media looks on, it unfortunately undergoes SMEF (Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure) and disappears. Leovinus, the designer of the ship, uncovers shoddy workmanship, poor cybernetics and a series of increasingly eccentric robots. The owners, Scraliontis and Brobostigan, were intent on destroying the ship and claiming the insurance.

Meanwhile in Oxfordshire, four humans are inspecting a property they intend buying, only to see it crushed under the re-materialising Starship. This disaster is swiftly followed by an invitation from an over-attentive robot to come aboard, and Lucy, Dan and Nettie are catapulted into a series of increasingly bizarre encounters.

Stylistically emulating the work of the great Douglas Adams in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the late Terry Jones weaves a fabulously mad and comic tale, adapted by Ian Billings and directed by Dirk Maggs, who also directed the last four editions of the Hitchhiker’s sagas.

The cast includes Tom Alexander, Ian Billings, Nicholas Boulton, Rupert Degas, Philip Pope, Alana Ramsey abd Rebecca Yeo. With a special guest appearance by Simon Jones, who played Arthur Dent in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, and music by Philip Pope.